Inside the Vatican magazine March-April 2025

MARCH-APRIL 2025 $10 / EUR 10 / £8

PHOTO - GRZEGORZ GALAZKA

FRANCIS FALLS ILL “Hope AmId SuFFeRINg LeAdS to god”

EASTER ESSAY TOWARDS TOWARDS THE THE RISEN RISEN CHRIST CHRIST

C OMPELLiNG S TORiES OF COURAGEOUS CATHOLiC LEADERS

◆ FATHER JOSEPH FESSIO, S.J. California Blackrobe

◆ GEORGE CARDINAL PELL Pax Invictus

his in-depth, page-turning biography of the founder of Ignatius Press is written by one of Fessio’s earliest Jesuit mentors, historian Fr. Cornelius Buckley, S.J. Raised in the Bay Area after World War II, the bold Joe Fessio entered the Society of Jesus at age twenty and, by divine providence, studied for six years under three of the greatest theological minds of the 20th century—Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). He returned from Europe and started the St. Ignatius Institute at USF, and Ignatius Press. Over the decades, he has become one of the most powerful forces in the American Catholic Church, designing the Catholic Great Books program at USF and founding one of the largest Catholic publishing houses in the world.

This robust yet unsentimental study of Fessio’s unique life, cut with Buckley’s trademark wit, shows what effective Christian missionary work can look like in the age of media.

Includes 32 pages of photos. FRFH . . . Sewn Hardcover, $27.95

T

T

“No one has impacted the Catholic Church in America and beyond like Father Fessio. This delightful biography is a must-read.”

—Most Rev. James Conley, Bishop, Lincoln NE

“George Pell, was a giant — on the football field, as a bishop leading the flock in Australia, as a brilliant intellect, and in his love of Jesus whom he served with vigor every day of his extraordinary life.”

— Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“Essential reading to appreciate Fr. Fessio’s undaunted character, sense of mission, and the impact of his work on the global Catholic scene.” — Scott Hahn, Author, Rome Sweet Home “As the light of Christian faith flickers across the West, one American priest leads on with inimitable brilliance, Joseph Fessio, S.J.” —Mary Eberstadt, Author, Adam and Eve after the Pill

his definitive biography of the great Australian Cardinal by veteran journalist Tess Livingstone traces his life from childhood in Australia to his role as the Vatican treasurer; through his trials, unjust imprisonment, and exoneration, to his untimely passing away in January 2023.

His huge legacy includes rebuilding Church precincts in Melbourne and Sydney, revitalizing seminary formation, founding Catholic universities, leading Australia’s Catholic foreign aid agency, and heading World Youth Day 2008. From a weekly column in Australia’s largest Sunday newspaper to bestselling books and scholarly lectures, he has left a trove of writings. This book includes snippets of some of the best of them and captures his ideas, wit, and personality.

In his role as Vatican treasurer, his efforts to reform the Church’s finances met with resistance from an entrenched “old guard’’. Through it all, he retained his dignity and integrity as a faithful successor to the apostles. GCPBH . . Sewn Hardcover, $29.95

“Cardinal Pell was extraordinary in every sense: a man of sacrificial faith, superior intelligence, and tremendous evangelical energy. Livingstone has captured all these qualities, in this marvelous biography.”

—Francis X. Maier, Author, True Confessions: Voices of Faith from a Life in the Church

www.ignatius.com P.O. Box 1339, Ft. Collins, CO 80522

(800) 651-1531

EDITORIAL by Robert Moynihan

Pope Francis Falls Gravely Ill The eyes of the world turned toward Rome in February as Pope Francis was hospitalized, and diagnosed with pneumonia. Many began to assess his pontificate and think of his possible successor. We pray for his soul...

Friday, February 21, 2025 — The eyes of the world turned toward Rome in February as Pope Francis was hospitalized, diagnosed with pneumonia, and the Swiss Guard began practicing their maneuvers in the case of the Pope’s death. The photo on this month’s cover shows Francis gazing upon the wounds of the crucified Lord during his last public appearance before he was hospitalized on February 14.

As I write on February 21, the latest press briefings offer hope for his recovery. His fever has subsided, and he is alert and in good spirits. But Pope Francis is 88, by any standard an elderly man, and his health is clearly precarious. He may very well recover (his care is no doubt the best available), but mortality looms large for him in any case, and thus it does for the Church.

The final days or months, or even years, of this Pope’s reign will be marked by changing circumstances in the world.

First of all, in the political world: a new US President, Donald Trump, and his vice-president, Catholic convert JD Vance, are presenting Pope Francis with an almost entirely new array of American stances on everything from migrants to AI, from conflicts like the ones in Ukraine and Gaza to population control and gender ideology.

Francis belives all migrants should be treated as persons with great human dignity, while Trump is bent, he says, on stopping illegal immigration dead in its tracks in a way likely to denigrate that human dignity. Thus, the Pope wrote a letter to the US bishops in February in which he rebukes the US government (and therefore Trump) for planned mass deportations of illegal immigrants. The US bishops have sued the Trump administration, in fact, for halting the flow of tens of millions of dollars to the USCCB’s migrant-assistance operations — efforts which they say are strictly for “legal” and “vetted” migrants, but which many accuse of aiding and abetting not just illegal immigration, but drug proliferation and child trafficking. So, Francis’s repeated statements about compassion and welcoming immigrants, regardless of their legal status, put him and the new US administration on a collision course.

In regard to AI, Artificial Intelligence, the Vatican, approved

by Francis, issued a cautionary document on the dangers of AI and counseling tight control of its development. At the same time, Vice-President Vance just gave a talk to European leaders urging them to lean toward less regulation in order to allow AI’s unhampered development “for the good of the world.”

It is almost as if the differences the Pope had with previous president Biden, though often touching on the very heart of our Faith and the Catholic perception of reality (Holy Communion for those supporting abortion; the nature of the human person, body and soul, created by God), were not as pronounced — did not arouse the Pope to speak out — as much as his differences with Trump, an abortion foe and pro-religious freedom crusader, in the social and political spheres.

This papal attitude annoys many American Catholics, especially the large swath of Trump supporters. Will this American

dissatisfaction with Francis’ political and social stances exert any influence as the cardinals look ahead — as they surely are now — to the choosing of his successor?

It is hard to tell if the Trumpian ascendancy actually translates into an American ascendancy of influence in the Catholic Church, but it may. Certainly, the US has always had an outsized footprint at the Vatican, given that it is the richest country in the world and consequently, the Church in the US has always been a generous source of funding for the Vatican. Money talks, as little as we like to admit it. But how loudly it talks remains to be seen.

In fact, the American influence has actually been waning, especially in the Francis pontificate. Perhaps that will change, but perhaps the cardinals, the majority of whom have been chosen by Francis himself, will continue the line of the current Pope.

One thing that Trump and the Pope agree on is the need to end war immediately. The Pope, to his credit, took a fair amount of flak for refusing to throw his support unilaterally behind Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine in the protracted conflict with Russia, and now Trump is taking even more for engineering a meeting with Putin to discuss terms to end the Ukraine war. Yet we do not know what kind of world will result; what kind of world will the attempt at using American muscle to reshape the political landscape produce? What kind of Pope will we need to exert the “soft power” that only he can exert on world diplomacy?

One ray of sunshine for traditional Catholics: a report that the Pope recently wrote a letter to a group of traditional Catholic priests of the Fraternity of St. Peter that they can continue to use the traditional Latin Mass. Here is what a friend just wrote to me: “The other day we got a visit by two seminarians from Wigratzbad in Germany where they study and prepare themselves for priesthood with the tridentine Petrus-brothers who are and live — unlike the Pius Brothers — in full communion with the Pope. But nevertheless they were quite concerned by Traditiones Custodes and were afraid that Pope Francis might take away and cut all their privileges. Therefore their superior wrote a letter to Pope Francis with the following story: ‘Dear Holy Father, 'there was a little white rabbit chased by a hunter with his gun in a big forest. Bullets all around his ears, but he succeeded to escape and escaped. But then, finally the rabbit was cornered and no escape anymore in sight in front of the hunter with his gun. Then the following thought came to his mind. Yes, there is one safe place left that I see. And with a huge jump the rabbit leaped right into the hunter's arms, who couldn't, of course, harm it anymore nor even think of it.’ Having told you this dear Holy Father we’d like to jump into your arms and ask for mercy!” Two days later their superior got a phone call from the Vatican saying: “Here is the Pope. May I invite you to come to Rome to see me to discuss all the relevant issues?” And that’s how it happened.

They came to Rome, met the Pope, and confirmed all their privileges and annihilated every obstacle for them. Good morning and love from Rome.”

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

3

CONTENTS MARCH-APRIL 2025

Year 33, #2

LEAD STORY The Pieces Are In Motion: World events accelerate as Francis falls ill again

by Christopher Hart-Moynihan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

MARCH-APRIL 2025 Year 33, #2

v EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Robert Moynihan ASSOCIATE EDITOR: George “Pat” Morse (+ 2013) ASSISTANT EDITOR: Christina Deardurff CULTURE EDITOR: Lucy Gordan CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: William D. Doino, Jr. WRITERS: Anna Artymiak, Alberto Carosa, Giuseppe Rusconi, David Quinn, Andrew Rabel, Vladimiro Redzioch, Serena Sartini PHOTOS: Grzegorz Galazka LAYOUT: Giuseppe Sabatelli ILLUSTRATIONS: Stefano Navarrini CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Deborah B. Tomlinson ADVERTISING: Katie Carr Tel. +1.202.864.4263 kcarr@insidethevatican.com

v EDITORIAL OFFICES FOR MAIL: US: 14 West Main St. Front Royal, VA 22630, USA Tel +1.202.536.4555 Rome: Inside the Vatican via delle Mura Aurelie 7c, Rome 00165, Italy Tel: +39.06.3938.7471 Fax: +39.06.638.1316 POSTMASTER: send address changes to Inside the Vatican PO Box 1320 Front Royal, VA 22630, USA Tel: +1.800.789.9494 Fax: +1.202.536.5409 Subscriptions (USA): Inside the Vatican PO Box 1320 Front Royal, VA 22630, USA www.insidethevatican.com Tel. +1.800.789.9494

NEWS VATICAN/New Vatican Document Examines Risks of AI

by Salvatore Cernuzio (Vatican News)/ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 SYRIA/Homs bishop: Situation in Syria does not follow “Western narrative”

by Gianni Valente (Agenzia Fides) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 VATICAN/Pope names first female dicastery head

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 WASHINGTON/Cardinal Robert McElroy heads to Washington, DC — with “baggage”

by Christina Deardurff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 OBITUARY/Bishop Richard Williamson, the “twice excommunicated” Catholic bishop

by Robert Moynihan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 CULTURE INTERVIEW/Bishop Gerard Battersby: “Let’s listen to both the living and the dead”

by Barbara Middleton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 REVIEW/New Autobiography of Pope Francis: Hope

by Christina Deardurff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 OPINION/Pope Francis and the “Peace Algorithm”

by Leonid Sevastianov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 EASTER ART ESSAY/The Resurrection of Jesus is a Pledge of Our Own Resurrection Awake, Arise and Remember

by Anthony Esolen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 “Christ gives us the certainty of our own resurrection”: Easter 2008 homily of Benedict XVI

by ITV Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 The Resurrection in Film: A Brief Overview

by ITV staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 FOOTSTEPS ON THE WAY/Jubilee Diary: “Disarming Communication”

by Anna Artymiak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 SCRIPTURE/What is a body?

by Anthony Esolen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS/By the Blood of the Lamb and the Words of Our Own Testimony

by Marcellus Roberts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 URBI ET ORBI: CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Icon/The Creed: The Resurrection of the Dead

by Robert Wiesner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 East-West Watch/The Orthodox in Syria Today

by Peter Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47 News from the East/UN says banning UOC problematic; British spies foiled plots to kill Pope; Patriarch laments “catastrophic” toll in Gaza; new Syrian leader meets with Christian clergy

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

v INSIDE THE VATICAN (ISSN 1068-8579, 1 yr subscription: $ 49.95; 2 yrs, $94.95; 3 yrs, $129.95), provides a comprehensive, independent report on Vatican affairs published bimonthly (6 times per year) with occasional special supplements.

Inside the Vatican is published by Urbi et Orbi Communications, PO Box 1320, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA, pursuant to a License Agreement with Robert Moynihan, the owner of the Copyright. Inside the Vatican, Inc., maintains editorial offices in Rome, Italy.

Periodicals Postage PAID at New Hope, Kentucky, USA and additional mailing offices.

Copyright 2025 Robert Moynihan

4 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

FEATURES Tradition and Beauty/Gregorian Chant: Between Heaven and Earth

by Aurelio Porfiri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Art/Rome: “The City of Water”

by Lucy Gordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 Lord of the World/“The Immorality of Forgiveness”

by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56 Vatican Watch/A day-by-day chronicle of Vatican events: December and January, 2025

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 People/ Pope’s new preacher; beatification process for modern Belgian king; Cardinal says Benedict “very humble”; Parolin highlights Jordan visit; Chinese parish celebrates 450 years

by Matthew Trojacek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Food for Thought/ Le Cesarine: Amabassadors of Cucina Italiana

by Mother Martha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

Italy: Journey Toward the Face of Christ May 24 - June 3, 2025 From the ancient rooms where St. Paul lived for seven years, to the bishop’s residence in Assisi; from the treasure trove of art and faith at the Vatican Museum, to the Benedictine monastery of Norcia; we will encounter some of the “living stones” of our Church, as we journey toward the Face of Christ — both spiritually and physically, in the form of the miraculous Face of Manoppello. Visit us online to learn more!

I N S I D E T H E VAT I CA N PI LG R I M AG E S .C O M Watch InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com for new and upcoming pilgrimages.

Our pilgrimages fill up fast. Make your reservation today! Join us on a trip of a lifetime.

C R E AT E A G R O U P O F 15 O R M O R E A N D G O F R E E !

Join us on a pilgrimage during the Jubilee of 2025 and experience a journey of faith, hope, and renewal!

SOLD OUT Signature ITALY: Easter in Italy April 14 - 24, 2025

Classic USA: Discovering Mary in the Heartland

Classic Pilgrimage to Medjugorje and Retreat to

Signature SPAIN and FRANCE: With Mary from

a private island in Croatia – August 20 – 29, 2025

Garabandal to Lourdes, August 21 - 28, 2025

Classic MEXICO: Our Lady of Guadalupe & the Flower World Prophecy, September 19 - 26, 2025

Signature ITALY: Jubilee Rome and Assisi,

Classic SPAIN: Pilgrimage and Lenten Retreat with Fr. Murr, March 11 - 18, 2025

Signature LEBANON: Ancient Monasteries, Modern

Signature ITALY: Christmas in Rome, December 2025 PILGRIMAGE@INSIDETHEVATICAN.COM +1.202.536.4555

Pilgrimage to Wisconsin, April 28 - May 2, 2025

September 27 - October 7, 2025

Saints and Christmas Markets – December 2025

Our Signature Pilgrimages (intimate, limited to 15 pilgrims) are impossible to mass-produce.

Like the products of an artisan, they are works of painstaking preparation that reflect our unswerving commitment to create something of great and unique beauty.

Our Classic Pilgrimages (small by industry standards, limited to 35 pilgrims) are carefully budgeted so you can visit beautiful and sacred destinations while experiencing the quality, style and integrity of Inside the Vatican pilgrimages at an affordable price.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR INSIDE THE VATICAN wants to hear from you! Email us at editor@insidethevatican.com or write to us at 14 W. Main St., Front Royal, VA 22630. Letters are edited for clarity and used as space permits.

POPE BENEDICT’S WISDOM

We get requests like these everyday.

Dear Friends: I’ve just received your latest issue, and even a cursory perusal reveals your usual incisive and relevant articles and stellar photography.

I also noticed, however, that it was marked “last issue” of my subscription. If possible, may I request another year’s extension?

In this prison—deep in rural Georgia—there is no Catholic ministry, ergo, no sacraments; Inside the Vatican is therefore a vital part of my communion with the Church—second, of course, to prayer, in which I always include you and your staff.

I appreciate your kindness.

With love in Christ, Richard J. T. Clark, T.O.M.

Help us, help them.

Many prisoners—as well as religious—have requested, but are unable to afford, subscriptions. Please donate to the ITV Scholarship Fund and provide B GVMM ZFBS of Inside the Vatican magazine for only $39.95/year.

1-800-789-9494 www.InsideTheVatican.com

8

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

What a marvelous job you do with Inside the Vatican. An absolutely marvelous job, especially when it comes to Pope Benedict XVI’s writings. They fill your magazine with beauty, wisdom and grace. Thank you, Bob, from the bottom of my heart.

Please keep this beauty going!

Marie Paul Jaston Somerville, Massachusetts, USA I’d like to draw your attention to my column in the May 2024 issue of New Oxford Review, which is titled “Was Pope Benedict XVI Holding Back the Destroying Flood?” In it I take a deep look into two of Peter Seewald’s interviews with Pope Benedict that you translated into English and published in your September-October 2023 and March-April 2024 issues.

I thought these were fascinating interviews and excellent choices for reprinting.

Seewald offers a unique and insightful eschatological view of Benedict’s papacy and, by extension, Francis’. Keep up the great work!

Pieter Vree Editor, New Oxford Review

THE NEXT POPE [Re: Moynihah Letter #23: The Next Papal Election] Your letter about the next Pope and the election of Pope Celestine V, a Benedictine monk and priest (but not a cardinal or even a bishop) in 1294, was very interesting.

Janet Bayard jbayard19@gmail.com

@

will rise up in these buildings and give spiritual sustenance to everyday people.

Vincent McConeghy Niagara Falls, NY, USA

ORIGINS OF THE MASS [Re: Moynihan Letter #10: Motu Proprio, Pt. 2] I have long pondered the origins of the Church. When did the Mass become Latin, and were not the original Christians “Jews”? And when were the Jewish customs and observances discontinued in the early original Christian/Catholic Church?

Sandra Geromette ssgolex@yahoo.com Just finished your Part 2, my first time reading this history of early Christianity.

Enhances my appreciation for the Mass and my weekly attendance. Still working on understanding the Eucharist as the real presence of Jesus Christ after the Consecration and not just a symbolic act.

Matt Novak Cleveland, Ohio, USA This series on “The Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now?” is magnificent! Reading Moynihan Letter #19, I was moved to tears. I felt brokenhearted, yet filled with God’s immense love and mercy.

The Psalms of David melted my heart with their wholeheartedly delicate beauty and profound, almost unbearably painful remorse, but faithful hope. I’ll try to hear you and son Christopher’s “Father and Son” podcast series.

Biserka Brito abaxima@gmail.com

CHURCH CLOSINGS The small parishes throughout our diocese of Buffalo, NY, are closing. My parish is one. The reasons are not complicated. Decades of clergy pedophilia have finally been exposed and hundreds of millions of dollars paid to the victims.

Now faithful parishioners, overwhelmed by modern life, have been told their weekly place of refuge and meditation must close.

This is a good thing. Hopefully, something other than a Church rotten to the core

FATHER AND SON [Re: “Father and Son” podcast February 7, with Robert and Christopher Moynihan] Thank you for the tremendous lecture on Sir Halford Mackinder (called by some the “father of geopolitics”). “What if … the whole World-Island or a large part of it,” Mackinder asked, “were at some future time to become a single and united base of sea-power?” In 1911, he said, “Whenever this great people decides to take full ad-

vantage of resources... industry, communications, defense, it is inevitable that, after one or two generations, China will count among the… Great Powers of the world.”

Stephen of Novgorod, Wanderer

will become rather evident — enough, possibly, to answer your question.

Bill Fall bill.fall@umb.edu

MIND YOUR BUSINESS GET WITH IT For God’s sake, will you give over about the Latin Mass. Latin was the vernacular of its day when it was first introduced. Get with it, for God's sake, and stop looking to the past. Or look at it in its proper context. Stop sowing discord.

Francis was legitimately elected and is the Pope, so give him support instead of backbiting and under-mining him Sean Creaney seancreaney@gmail.com

“GURU” PASOLINI Channeling a fictional hidden meaning of the relationship between David and Jonathan, and between the centurion and his dear and sick servant, the new Preacher of the Papal Household, Father Roberto Pasolini, signals that the Bible might contain some “form of approval of homosexual relationships” (ITV, January-February 2025). Guru Pasolini might just as well speculate about a centurion concerned over a sick maidservant or even a daughter, such that fornication or incest also might be biblically “approved.” Or, maybe even a speculation about the Christmas shepherds and their sheep? Why so exclusive?

Peter D. Beaulieu Shoreline, Washington, USA

BISHOP KHAIRALLAH [Re: Moynihan Letter #15: Top Ten #1] Thank you for publicizing Maronite Catholic Bishop Mounir Khairallah’s beautiful message of forgiveness and mercy as the foundation of peace!

Greg Doyle gpdoyle4@gmail.com

ST. CLEMENT HOFBAUER In a recent podcast with Fr. Murr, you raised the question about Freemasonry in the Church. I have been working on a manuscript that I soon may be publishing. It concerns a very dark era in the Church, not unlike the present one, in which St. Clement Maria Hofbauer, second founder of the Redemptorists, found himself having to do battle. Some rather striking similarities between that era and the present one, I think,

Dear Pope Francis, Please mind your own business when it comes to illegal immigration of unvetted migrants into the USA. We have a legal way for immigrants to enter the USA. Millions of Americans have risked their lives for our laws, our way of life, our culture — including our border laws. Many have even died for this. Every migrant is welcome to enter legally. We don’t need people like you encouraging massive violation of our laws. We don’t see you taking in 12 million illegals into the Vatican! I don’t believe Jesus would ever support massive violation of the laws of a country.

A Veteran of the Vietnam War

DANGERS OF BIG TECH There are perhaps few people who would fully understand the attached story

by Dr. Naomi Wolf (“The Sack of Rome: Elon Musk’s Digital Coup,” subtitled, “Elon Musk and his Engineers, Having Captured Our Data, are Now More Powerful than any President”).

But I believe you are one of them.

I was very concerned about this alignment of big tech with our government.

Whether it was this current one or whichever, I was not in favor of this particular private sector’s introduction into any level of government. While I believe a temporary blessing is underway to “right the ship,” in the US and worldwide, with the widespread rejection of the World Economic Forum and with populist candidates winning across the world, this may be the

“Peace, but not really” that the Scriptures warn about.

Linda Smith Florida, USA

JUST THE FACTS I spoke to a priest who lives in Massachusetts, who said he has been a subscriber to Inside the Vatican from the beginning — but, he said, recent issues have “just been too much for him.” He objects to all the criticism of Pope Francis and saying that he’s broken with Pope Benedict, etc.

I just thought you might want to know since he’s subscribed for this long.

Personally, I think you are just reporting the facts of what Francis is doing and saying, and anyone with half a brain can see that Pope Francis is breaking with his predecessor and flirting with heresy, but I guess some people just don’t want anyone to say so out loud. However, he was very sweet and kind, and I didn’t argue with him!

A reader

FROM PRISONERS I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the renewal of another year of Inside the Vatican. All of us that read each issue of ITV really enjoy the articles and the excellent pictures!

David WIlliams, #D29095 Everglades Reentry 1599 S.W. 187th Avenue

Don’t Miss an Update!

Go to the link below and sign up using your email to receive: emailed notifications regarding your subscription, renewal notifications, and the free emailed newsletter, The Moynihan Letters.

https://qrco.de/ITVemail

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

9

LEAD STORY

the pieces are iN motioN… From the November electioN oF DoNalD trump to the February speech oF JD vaNce iN muNich, the pace oF history has accelerateD. aND Now pope FraNcis has FalleN ill… n BY CHRISTOPHER HART-MOYnIHAn

Pope Francis, who found common cause with Joe Biden’s administration on issues like migration, now faces failing health and a new world situation with the ascendancy of Donald Trump as US president, and with his vice-president, JD Vance — marking a seeming “Trump Reset”

F

orget the “Great Reset.” After just a little more than 30 days since Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, the “Trump Reset” is already well underway.

And already this has prompted a concerned reaction from an aging Pope Francis, 88, who in mid-February was hospitalized for bronchitis (he remains in hospital under round-the-clock care as I write this article). What is the “Trump Reset” all about? And what does it portend for relations between the Holy See and the United States of America?

An “IMMUTABLE” ORDER IS CHAnGInG

The post-World War II global international order, seen by many as

an unchangeable, immutable fact of international relations, was thrown into doubt on February 14, and the reason was a simple 19-minute speech.

The speech, given at a Munich, Germany security conference by U.S. Vice President JD Vance – a Catholic convert – shocked an audience of European government officials into silence, as much by what Vance didn’t say as by what he said.

Vance spent his speaking time highlighting what he termed “the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values” – barely mentioning the 3-year-old war in Ukraine. This was an abrupt shift from the policies of the Biden presidency.

As specific examples of this “retreat,” Vance mentioned: (1) the De-

10 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

cember 2024 annulment of an election in Romania that resulted in the controversial victory of a “far-right” candidate, Călin Georgescu; (2) the United Kingdom’s new “Buffer Zones” law, a law which, Vance stressed, “criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility.”

Vance went on to claim that (3) the Scottish government had begun “distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.” (This claim was disputed by the drafter of the law, MSP Gillian Mackayit, who claimed the letters Vance cited spoke only about activities that could be seen “out-

Below, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych and Head of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. Futher below, Pope Francis meets with President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas in the Private Library of the Apostolic Palace.

side the home,” such as displaying Trump and Vladimir Putin of Rus- would be resettled in communities posters or banners or protesting in a sia perhaps before the end of Febru- in Egypt and Jordan. “The Palesfront garden.) ary(!). tinians, or the people that live now Vance’s February 14 speech was So things are now moving very in Gaza, will be living beautifully an earthquake. It marks a seismic fast. in another location,” the U.S. Presishift in U.S.-European relations, Munschau in his Unherd piece dent said. “I believe we’ll have a with current American political writes: “The Ukraine war must end parcel of land in Jordan. I believe leadership openly questioning because Ukraine has lost. It’s as we’ll have a parcel of land in whether the two sides do truly share simple as that. Russia has shifted to Egypt. We may have someplace common values and strategic inter- a war economy, and outproduces else, but I think when we finish our ests, despite Vance’s assurance the West in military gear and am- talks, we’ll have a place where that “I fundamentally believe munition by a large margin. they’re going to live very happily that we are on the same There’s no way it can lose and very safely.” team.” now. A Ukrainian victory However, it is unclear how such Indeed, Wolfgang would have required the a plan could be implemented withMunschau wrote in a US and Europe to have out violating established internapiece entitled “The End of taken different policy de- tional law against forced resettlethe Transatlantic Alliance” cisions early on: a complete ment and ethnic cleansing. And in Unherd on February oil and gas embargo on many Arabic and Muslim nations in 17 that: “There is no day one, a total cut-off of the Middle East have expressed longer any doubt that Eu- U.S. PRESIDENT all Russian banks from outrage at the suggestion that nearly rope and America are DONALD TRUMP international financial 2 million Palestinians would simply HAS STATED parting ways. The death networks, an immediate be permanently removed from of the transatlantic rela- THAT UKRAINE’S increase in defence in- Gaza. tionship was foretold dustrial investments, and One consequence of the Gaza POPULATION many times, but at the a readiness to make sac- conflict is now playing out in Munich Security Confer- “MAY BE RUSSIAN rifices. Ukraine needed Lebanon, where a greatly weakened SOME DAY” ence this weekend, it fibrave supporters. It got Hezbollah seems to have lost some nally ended.” cheerleaders instead.” of its iron grip over the country’s Dramatic words. politics. On January 9, Joseph AnD GAZA? Aoun, a Maronite Catholic AnD UKRAInE? While Trump and Vance and former head of The fact that Vance’s speech oc- seem less and less conLebanon’s Armed Forces, curred several days after an inter- cerned with restoring was elected as the Presiview given by U.S. President Don- Ukraine’s lost territory and dent of Lebanon, breakald Trump in which he stated that more and more likely to ing a political stalemate Ukraine’s population “may be seek to strike some kind of which had seen the country Russian some day, or they may not compromise with Russian fail to form a functionTRUMP MADE be Russian some day,” made it clear President Vladimir Putin, ing government for that a possible realignment is un- they are taking a very difmore than two years.

COMMENTS derway, with the United States ferent tack with respect to The rise of Aoun is conALLUDING TO A beating a rhetorical, and perhaps lit- the conflict in Gaza, the nected to the waning of POTENTIAL eral, retreat from three years of latest iteration of which Hezbollah’s influence CEASEFIRE blank-check support under Democ- began with the horrific after suffering various AGREEMENT IN ratic President Joe Biden for killings on October 7, strategic defeats at the Ukraine’s fight against the Russian 2023, a year and a half hands of the Israeli DeWHICH THE invasion that began in February ago.

UNITED STATES fense Forces since the 2022.

In a joint press conferbeginning of the Gaza WOULD “OWN” And, just as I write this, it is ence with Jordanian King conflict.

GAZA being reported that Russian Foreign Abdullah II on February And another conseMinister Sergei Lavrov and US 11 in Washington D.C., Trump quence has been the ouster in Syria Secretary of State Marco Rubio will made comments alluding to a po- of longtime President Bashar albegin meeting tomorrow, February tential ceasefire agreement in which Assad. After more than a decade of 18, in Saudi Arabia, to prepare for a the United States would “own” bloody civil war, in November of direct meeting between Donald Gaza, and the Gaza Strip’s residents 2024, a coalition of Syrian rebels MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 11

LEAD STORY

The Pieces Are in MoTion…

“WHAT I WORRY ABOUT IS THE THREAT FROM WITHIN” SPEECH IN MUNICH - FEBRUARY 14, 2025 (EXCERPTS)

n BY JD VAnCE, VICE-PRESIDEnT OF THE UnITED STATES

W

e gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many, many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine – and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defence – the threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor.

What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.

I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go according to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.

Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them. (...)

And unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the cold war’s win-

mounted several offensives with the intention of ousting Assad. On the morning of December 8, 2024, as rebel troops first entered Damascus, Assad fled to Moscow and was granted political asylum by the Russian government.

A WATERSHED These major shifts on the part of the new US administration — the criticism of Europe’s progressive values, the abrupt de-prioritization of Ukraine, and the full-throttle support for the way Israel has conducted the Gaza conflict under 12 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

ners. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.

I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be “hateful content.” Or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of “combating misogyny” on the internet. (...)

And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Conner, a 51-yearold physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of his unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before.

The officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new Buffer Zones Law, which criminalises silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 metres of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.

Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no.

This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish govern-

Prime Minister Benjamin Nemany that this relationship tanyahu — mark a watermay be a complex and shed, with major, immediate sometimes rocky one, and consequences for Americanthe uncertain health of Pope European relations, for Francis may only increase Ukraine, and for Israel and its the uncertainty of the instituneighbors. But what tional relationships. about relations beBUT WHAT ABOUT tween the Holy See RELATIONS BETWEEN WILL FRAnCIS and the new Trump“MOVE TO PROTECT THE HOLY SEE AND Vance-Elon MuskHIS LEGACY”?

THE NEW TRUMPMarco Rubio adminisA February 17 artiVANCE-ELON MUSK- cle in Politico by Ben tration?

Of course, it is diffiMARCO RUBIO Munster is entitled cult to predict the fu“Pope Francis, sensADMINISTRATION? ture, but the signs are ing he is close to

Left, the February 14 Munich Conference where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (front left) finds himself facing, without strong support from the Europeans, the arguments of the Trump administration, represented by US Vice President JD Vance (front right)

ment began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.

Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. (...)

So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.

In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town.

And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.

Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even.

But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.

Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice.

And I really do believe that allowing citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still.

death, moves to protect his le gacy” and adds: “The battle to succeed Pope Francis is likely to be highly politicized, particularly given the pontiff’s recent clash with Catholic US Vice President JD Vance.”

Like many observers, Munster took the Pope’s hospitalization on February 14 with bronchitis (three days ago as I write) as a signal to look beyond this present moment, writing: “Pope Francis is seriously worried about his health after being hospitalized with severe bronchitis,

(...)

I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges. But the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years. (...)

And of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And of course, it’s gotten much higher since. (...)

But what no democracy, American, German or European, will survive, is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t. Europeans, the people have a voice.

European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future. (...)

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice. And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little.

As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said, “Do not be afraid.”

We shouldn’t be afraid of our people even when they express views that disagree with their leadership.

Thank you all. Good luck to all of you.

God bless you.n

and is rushing to tie up loose ends ahead of the battle to succeed him… According to two people familiar with the matter, Francis has been suffering from intense pain and has privately expressed fears that he won’t make it this time.”

Munster added: “The Pope initially resisted going to hospital but was told in no uncertain terms that

he was at risk of dying if he stayed in his room in the Vatican, the second person added.”

Munster continued: “On February 6, before he was hospitalized, he extended the term of the Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Re as dean of the College of Cardinals, a role that will oversee some preparations for a potential conclave…. The move was intended to ensure that the process plays out according to Francis’s wishes, the people said. Re’s continuation in the role will also see him deliver funeral rites for Francis MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 13

LEAD STORY

The Pieces Are in MoTion…

should he die. The Pope has privately joked that Re will be ‘kinder’ to him than other candidates, a second person added.”

But what clash with JD Vance is Munster referring to?

Before his health took a turn for the worse, on February 10, Francis issued an unusual public rebuke of United States Vice President JD Vance. In an open Letter to the US Bishops, Francis criticized Vance’s theological use of the concept of “ordo amoris” (“the order of love”) as a justification for President Donald Trump’s proposed policy of massive deportations to deal with illegal immigration.

Greg Sargent addressed this in The New Republic on February 12 in an article entitled “Pope Francis’s Stunning Rebuke of JD Vance Exposes MAGA’s Dark Soul,” and subtitled “The vice president took a stab at theology to defend the administration’s rank cruelty.

Then a higher authority weighed in.”

“The other day,” Sargent wrote, “JD Vance sought to reconcile President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ vision with the tenets of Christianity. Vance argued for a ‘Christian concept’ that orders our ethical obligations in a series of concentric circles, starting with love of family, then out to love of neighbor, then to community and nation, and only then out to the rest of the world.

“Vance claimed the left has ‘inverted that,’ casting Trumpism as more faithful to the allegedly Christian notion he’d outlined, because it puts ‘American citizens

THE POPE’S LETTER TO THE US BISHOPS (EXCERPT) FEBRUARY 10, 2025 DEAR BROTHERS IN THE EPISCOPATE, (...)

I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.

5. This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.

6. Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation. The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception. [3] (...)

10. Let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect individuals and families who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation. May the “Virgen morena,” who knew how to reconcile peoples when they were at enmity, grant us all to meet again as brothers and sisters, within her embrace, and thus take a step forward in the construction of a society that is more fraternal, inclusive and respectful of the dignity of all.

Fraternally, Francis

14 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

A FEBRUARY 17 ARTICLE In POLITICO BY BEn MUnSTER IS EnTITLED “POPE FRAnCIS, SEnSInG HE IS CLOSE TO DEATH, MOVES TO PROTECT HIS LEGACY” AnD ADDS: “THE BATTLE TO SUCCEED POPE FRAnCIS IS LIKELY TO BE HIGHLY POLITICIZED, PARTICULARLY GIVEn THE POnTIFF’S RECEnT CLASH WITH CATHOLIC US VICE PRESIDEnT JD VAnCE” Pope Francis presides over the Holy Mass on February 9, 2025 — 5 days before he was hospitalized. The Pope, at age 88, suffering health problems, faces an increasingly complicated international political climate

first.’ This was sharply criticized online, leading Vance to defend it by citing the concept of ‘ordo amoris.’ That means ‘order of love’: Even if we are called upon to love all people, the practical limitations on the help we can offer others directs us to prioritize aid to those nearest to us.

“Now another authority of sorts has weighed in on Vance’s defense of Trumpism: Pope Francis. In a remarkable letter, Pope Francis condemned the Trump administration over ‘mass deportations’ and even indirectly criticized Vance’s use of ordo amoris to defend Trumpist nationalism… In his response, Pope Francis recognizes that nations and communities must defend themselves from serious or violent criminal migrants. But he condemns the broad conflation of undocumented status with ‘criminality,’ a clear rebuke of Trumpists who tar all migrants who illegally cross our borders as criminals by definition.”

The papal pushback triggered anger from the White House, which raises the prospect, Munster writes, “of a highly politicized succession battle should Francis die.”

Munster even suggested that the Trump-Vance administration might seek to… influence the next papal election… to arrive at a Pope less “confrontational” than Francis.

Munster concludes: “Even if Francis survives his latest illness, observers see this as a likely turning point as Francis shifts focus from making headway on reform to locking it in.

‘He may not die now but of course he eventually will,’ said one Vatican official. ‘We all die — and he’s an 88-year-old man with lung problems.’”m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 15

NEWS

new VAtIcAn document exAmInes potentIAl, And rIsks, of AI AI Is not “An ArtIfIcIAl form of humAn IntellIgence, but A product of It” n BY SALVATORE CERnUZIO (VATICAn nEWS)/ITV STAFF

T

he Pope’s warnings about Artificial Intelligence in recent years provide the outline for Antiqua et Nova, the “Note on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence,” released on January 28, that offers the results of a mutual reflection between the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education. The new document is addressed especially to “those entrusted with transmitting the faith,” but also to “those who share the conviction that scientific and technological advances should be directed toward serving the human person and the common good” (Paragraph 5).

In 117 paragraphs, Antiqua et Nova highlights challenges and opportunities of the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the fields of education, economy, work, health, relationships, and warfare.

Specifically, the document lists not only the risks but also the progress associated with AI, which it encourages as “part of the collaboration of man and woman with God.” (Paragraph 2) However, it does not avoid the concerns that come with all innovations, whose effects are still unpredictable.

AI AnD HUMAn InTELLIGEnCE Several paragraphs of the Note are devoted to the distinction between AI and human intelligence.

Quoting Pope Francis, the document affirms that “the very use of the word ‘intelligence’ in connection to AI ‘can prove misleading’… in light of this, AI should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence, but 16 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

But, it remarked, “In the case of humans, intelligence is a faculty that pertains to the person in his or her entirety, whereas in the context of AI, ‘intelligence’ is understood functionally.”

With reference to war, Antiqua et Nova stresses that autonomous and lethal weapons systems capable of “identifying and striking targets without direct human intervention are a “cause for grave ethical concern” (100). It notes that Pope Francis has called for their use to be banned since they pose “an ‘existential risk’ by having the potential to act in ways that could threaten the survival of entire regions or even of humanity itself” (101).

AI “INTELLIGENCE” IS “ONLY UNDERSTOOD FUNCTIONALLY” as a product of it” (35). “Like any product of human ingenuity, AI can also be directed toward positive or negative ends” (40). “AI ‘could introduce important innovations’” (48) but it also risks aggravating situations of discrimination, poverty, “digital divide,” and social inequalities (52). “the concentration of the power over mainstream AI applications in the hands of a few powerful companies raises significant ethical concerns,” including “the risk that AI could be manipulated for personal or corporate gain or to direct public opinion for the benefit of a specific industry” (53).

The Vatican noted that underlying AI “is the implicit assumption that the term ‘intelligence’ can be used in the same way to refer to both human intelligence and AI.”

HUMAn RELATIOnS On human relations, the document notes that AI can lead to “harmful isolation” (58), that “anthropomorphizing AI” poses problems for children’s growth (60) and that misrepresenting AI as a person is “a grave ethical violation” if this is done “for fraudulent purposes.”

Similarly, “using AI to deceive in other contexts—such as education or in human relationships, including the sphere of sexuality—is also to be considered immoral and requires careful oversight” (62).

The same vigilance is called for in the economic-financial sphere. “Antiqua et Nova” notes that, especially in the field of labour, “while AI promises to boost productivity… current approaches to the technology can paradoxically deskill workers, subject them to automated surveillance, and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks” (67).

The Note also dedicates ample space to the issue of healthcare.

Recalling the “immense potential” in various applications in the medical field, it warns that if AI were to replace the doctor-patient relationship, it would risk “worsening the loneliness that often accompanies illness” (73).

In the field of education, “Antiqua et Nova” notes that “AI presents both opportunities and challenges.” If used prudently, AI can improve access to education and offer “immediate feedback” to students (80). One problem is that many programmes “merely provide answers instead of prompting students to arrive at answers themselves or write text for themselves”; which can lead to a failure to develop critical thinking skills (82).

On the subject of fake news, the document warns of the serious risk of AI “generating manipulated content and false information” (85), which becomes worse when it is spread with the aim of deceiving or causing harm (87). Antiqua et Nova insists that “Those who produce and share AI-generated content should always exercise diligence in verifying the truth of what they disseminate and, in all cases, should ‘avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable’” (89).

On privacy and control, the Note points out that some types of data can go so far as to touch “upon the individual’s interiority, perhaps even their conscience” (90), with the danger of everything becoming “a kind of spectacle to be examined and inspected” (92). Digital surveillance “can also be misused to exert control over the lives of believers and how they express their faith” (90).

On the topic of the care of creation, Antiqua et Nova says, “AI has many promising applications for improving our relationship with our ‘common

home’” (95). “At the same time, current AI models and the hardware required to support them consume vast amounts of energy and water, significantly contributing to CO2 emissions and straining resources” (96).

THE RELATIOnSHIP WITH GOD The last topic raised by the Vatican document relates to A.I. and humanity’s relationship with God.

Adoration of the image of the Beast from the Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers, France

“SUBSTITUTING AN HUMAN ARTIFACT FOR GOD IS IDOLATRY”

Prof. Daniel O’Connor, American podcast host and author of The First and Last Deception

Here it states that “the presumption of substituting for God an artifact of human making is idolatry, a practice Scripture explicitly warns against (e.g., Ex. 20:4; 32:1-5; 34:17). Moreover, AI may prove even more seductive than traditional idols for, unlike idols that ‘have mouths but do not speak; eyes, but do not see; ears, but do not hear’ (Ps. 115:5-6), AI can ‘speak,’ or at least gives the illusion of doing so (cf. Rev. 13:15).”

This last critique of AI is what worries some Catholic commentators the

most. Daniel O’Connor, podcast host and author of The First and Last Deception, points out that AI creators are now talking about the “singularity” — a turning point in AI development in which AI will become “AGI” or “Artificial General Intelligence,” a level of AI that supposedly surpasses human intelligence, and which, some believe, will signal the acquisition of machine consciousness.

Critics like O’Connor worry that AGI, while still a human artifact, will be able to mimic a being with its own intellectual powers that can become an object of worship like the golden calf of Moses’ time.

In fact, he goes on to say, such technology could even be ripe for control by malignant spirits, and notes that several of the biggest tech gurus in the world are also dabblers in occult practices.

O’Connor notes that Antiqua et Nova itself cites Revelation 13:15, which says: “The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak, and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.”

“The Vatican is specifically connecting AI to the beast in Revelation,” O’Connor says, “and that’s huge. The Vatican hasn’t exactly been sounding the apocalyptic alarm, unless it’s about global warming, perhaps… so if the Vatican is suddenly, finally, beginning to issue warnings about that… it’s very rare, but it did just happen.”

It is worth noting that the Catholic Vice President of the U.S., JD Vance, told world leaders at an international AI conference in February that he favored a “deregulatory flavor” and “regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it.” The Trump administration is apparently taking a pro-AI stance that may be increasingly at odds with that of the Vatican. Hopefully it does not thereby end up opposing the spiritual good of humanity.m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 17

NEWS

new situAtion in syriA Does not follow “western nArrAtive” Archbishop of homs, syriA: rising persecution tAking its toll on pAtience of christiAns n BY GIAnnI VALEnTE (AGEnZIA FIDES)

Syrian Catholic Archbishop Jacques Mourad of Homs, Syria (Photo: RVA) In the circle: Muslim leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who declared himself “interim president” of Syria

A

new era has begun for Syria. And it is a difficult time again,” said Archbishop Jacques Mourad. The monk of the Deir Mar Musa community, spiritual son of Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, was held hostage for months by jihadists of the Islamic State in 2015.

And today, as Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs, what he sees and hears about the new suffering in Syria does not correspond to the dominant narrative in the media, especially in the West, which reports on a “regime change,” a successful and peaceful regime change with new Islamist leaders seeking international recognition after more than 50 years of the Assad clan ruling the country.

The dominant media coverage, for example, fails to mention the widespread violence and fear that once again overshadows the days of a large part of the Syrian population. A violence that, as Jacques Mourad admits, “seems to be a trap that all those who come to power here fall into.”

In recent weeks, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs told Fides, people have disappeared, prisons are filling up “and we do not know who is still alive and who is dead.” Those accused of having colluded with the collapsed regime are being tortured in public. And he also reports “several cases of young Christians being threatened and tortured in the streets in front of everyone, in order to instill fear and force them to renounce their faith and become Muslims” — crimes that are taking place far from Damascus.

“I try to encourage people, to console them, to ask for patience and to

“

18 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

“THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO START AGAIN WITH THE CHILDREN...

AND TO SEE IF SOMETHING IS REBORN, LIKE A NEW SPROUT”

look for solutions,” said Archbishop Mourad. “But when the violence increases, our words and our calls for patience will no longer convince them.”

Meanwhile, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, visited Syria in recent days as the Pope’s envoy to testify to the closeness of the Successor of Peter to the Christian communities in tormented Syria.

“The previous regime,” explains Archbishop Mourad, “presented itself as the defender of Christians. They always said: if we leave, the fanatics will return. Now many priests are pessimistic about the future. My answer is always the same: the situation is definitely incomparable to that of the past, when there were unimaginable crimes. But since the new violence, there are also those who say: ‘You saw that what Bashar al-Assad said is

true.’ The result is that many Christians now, more than ever, see no other way than to emigrate.”

In the churches, since the fall of the Assad regime, in many ways everything seems to continue as before: services, processions, prayers and works of charity.

The new rulers have not issued any compulsory regulations that in any way affect the everyday life of the church. The recognized leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Muhammad Joulani, leader of the armed jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, (HTS) who declared himself “interim president” of Syria on January 29, met with Father Ibrahim Faltas and area Franciscans at the end of 2024 and had words of praise for Pope Francis, stressing that the Christians who emigrated during and after the civil war should return to Syria.

“And the reality,” [Archbishop Mourad] adds, “is that there is no government. There are different armed groups. Some are fanatics, others are not. And each has its own power and imposes its own rule in the areas it controls.”

Archbishop Mourad says he does not know how the situation can improve. In the meantime, he himself is moving on.

“I thought the most important thing was to start again with the children.

You can only start again with children and young people after the war has somehow wiped out everything. And together with them, you have to start again with the essential, original things,” the Archbishop continued.

“And to see if something is reborn, like a new sprout.”m

NEWS

in vaTiCan, PoPe names FirsT Female diCasTery head in ChurCh hisTory The link beTween holy orders and ChurCh governanCe is inCreasingly unClear... n BY ITV STAFF

Italian Consolata Missionary Sister Simona Brambilla was secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life until being named its Prefect in January

P

ope Francis promulgated Praedicate Evangelium, his new constitution on the structures and governance of the Roman curia, in 2022. One of the key reforms included said “any member of the faithful” can head a dicastery or office in the Roman Curia.

That provision has come to full fruition in 2025, as the Pope named on January 6 a member of the Consolata Missionaries order, Sister Simona Brambilla, as the first female Prefect of a Vatican dicastery in history.

Sister Brambilla, who turns 60 on March 27, now heads the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life — the first prefect not to wear, or be slated to wear, the red cardinal’s hat.

Also of interest is the simultaneous appointment of Cardinal Angel Fernández Artime, S.D.B., as the dicastery’s Pro-prefect.

Sister Brambilla, now the highestranking female in the Vatican Curia, is also a layperson. That could have made her a sort of test case for an expanded notion of the limits of lay governance in the Catholic Church — a topic which dovetails with the Pope’s desire to foster “synodality” in the Church.

But since there has been appointed a “pro-prefect” to lead the dicastery with her, some Vatican observers believe the move actually does little to develop any new understanding of Curial authority, since the cardinal pro-prefect will presumably sign the dicastery’s official rulings and pronouncements.

Thus the fundamental question of how essential Holy Orders — and the unique graces imparted to the bishops of the Church upon consecration — actually is to the governance of the Church is not really resolved by the appointment of Sister Brambilla.

“ANY SEPARATION OF GOVERNANCE FROM HOLY ORDERS IS A BREAK WITH VATICAN II” —FATHER PIUS PIETRZYK, DOMINICAN HOUSE OF STUDIES, WASHINGTON D.C. According to Canon Law, laypeople were allowed to “cooperate” in the governance of the Church. With Pope Francis’ reform, it is explicitly stated that “any member of the faithful can preside over a dicastery or office.” Yet some in the Church have found themselves unable to square this reform with the teachings of Vatican II. As Catholic journalist and canon lawyer Ed Condon explains, “The Church says that bishops and others in positions of authority might exercise three kinds of functions, or munera, in the life of the Church — the offices of teaching, sanctifying and governing, which flow from the authority given by Jesus Christ to his apostles, and their successors. While the idea has always been important, Vatican II took special care to emphasize that bishops have a special share in those functions.”

Condon further points out that “This link between the sacrament of ordina-

tion and the exercise of governing power in the Church is also defined in the Code of Canon Law, which says that ‘those who have received sacred orders are qualified, according to the norm of the prescripts of the law, for the power of governance, which exists in the Church by divine institution and is also called the power of jurisdiction.’”

Bishop Marco Mellino, then secretary of the council of cardinals that helped to draft Praedicate Evangelium, offered a different perspective: “[T]he power of governance is not given with sacred orders, but rather through the canonical provision of an office,” he stated in a report to top Curial officials — meaning any layperson could be vested with authority in the Curia only by virtue of their being given it by the Pope.

At the time Pope Francis’ reforms were promulgated in 2022, Dominican Father Pius Pietrzyk, adjunct professor of canon law at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, commented, “Any separation of Church governance from holy orders would amount to a fairly radical break from the vision put forth by the Second Vatican Council.”

Two cardinals who have at various times been considered close collaborators of the Pope, Canadian Cardinal Marc Oullet and German Cardinal Walter Kasper, also issued statements of concern at the time.

In Kasper’s opinion, he wrote, “a dualism between the authority sacramentally conferred by ordination and the authority of governance or jurisdiction conferred by mandate [of the Pope] could end up becoming detached from the sacramental life of the Church and could also develop a certain life of its own, with unhappy consequences.”m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 19

NEWS

washington gets a new shepherd Cardinal robert MCelroy is slated for a MarCh arrival in the nation’s Capital — with “baggage” n BY CHRISTInA DEARDURFF Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, newly appointed bishop of Washington, DC (photo: Diocese of San Diego), In the circles, from top to bottom: Brian Burch, nominated by President Trump as the next US Ambassador to the Holy See (photo: CatholicVote.org), Cardinal Wilton Gregory and Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Pope’s nuncio to the US

P

ope Francis announced January 6 that Cardinal Robert McElroy, 70, the former ordinary of San Diego, California, and a vocal critic of Trumpian policy regarding the U.S. borders, would be the new bishop of Washington, D.C. The announcement came on the same day Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States was certified.

Was it a coincidence? Perhaps. But what is clear from reports on the selection process to fill the Washington post left vacant by the retirement of Cardinal Wilton Gregory, 77, is that McElroy, though long championed by the coterie of progressive U.S. bishops led by Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, was not a clear choice — and even one seriously questioned by U.S. papal nuncio Archbishop Christophe Pierre.

After Trump’s victory, the Vatican still wanted to preserve amicable relations with the White House, especially in light of the Pope’s and Trump’s common desire to bring about peace in both Ukraine and the Middle East.

That is, say reports, until Trump’s decision to nominate conservative CatholicVote.org founder and Trump cheerleader Brian Burch, 43, as US Ambassador to the Holy See. It was then that McElroy emerged as the clear favorite for the Washington, D.C. spot.

AGGRESSIVE AnD UnDIPLOMATIC? According to Catholic news outlet The Pillar after it spoke to a Church 20 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

“THE POPE IS SENDING A MESSAGE TO TRUMP” official,“The official said that the appointment of Burch was perceived at the [Vatican’s Ed.] Secretariat of State as ‘aggressive’ and ‘undiplomatic.’

“It ended expectations for a kind of ‘new beginning,’” he said. At the same time, sources close to the process told The Pillar Cardinal Cupich privately represented the nomination as antagonistic towards Pope Francis personally, requiring an appointment for Washington in response.

“The result was Pope Francis reversing his previous decision and opting for McElroy, The Pillar was told.”

Burch has criticized Pope Francis in the past — for example, taking him to task for his 2015 remark that good Catholics need not “breed like rabbits,” and again, eight years later, calling the Vatican’s Fiducia Suppli-

cans (which condoned blessing same-sex couples) a cause of “massive confusion” in the Church. He also said that the Pope exhibits a “pattern of vindictiveness and punishment” which “seems to fly in the face of what he says about being an instrument of mercy and accompaniment.”

Nevertheless, Burch, a graduate of the Catholic University of Dallas with a degree in philosophy, is a faithful, practicing Catholic and family man with nine children who has undeniably built an effective and thoroughly Catholic organization over the past 20 years.

“Brian Burch is a man of substance, not a mere internet bombthrower,” said Stream contributor Peter Wolfgang. “He has accomplished real things in the real world. Would it be so bad if Burch did — unofficially — represent to the Holy See a U.S. Church that often feels itself to be misunderstood by the present pontificate?”

SEnDInG A MESSAGE Secular news outlets like MSNBC saw an explicit Vatican challenge to Trump in the appointment, saying, “The Pope is sending a message to the incoming president… The Catholic Church is not going to stop fighting for the rights of immigrants even as a demagogue promising mass deportations prepares to enter the White House a second time.”

Though Catholic commentators were usually more circumspect, even

Pope Francis greets then-Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego (photo: Vatican Media).

Bottom, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich (right) and San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy (left)

the international Catholic journal LaCroix said the appointment “carried undeniable political weight.”

McElroy, of course, has been an outspoken foe of Trump’s policies, particularly regarding open borders and mass migration, which Trump has already begun to address with the beginning of his promised largescale deportations of illegal immigrants.

On January 6, McElroy opined about the issue, saying that while a country has the right to control its own borders, “At the same time, we are called always to have a sense of the dignity of every human person.

And thus, plans which have been talked about at some levels of having a wider indiscriminate massive deportation across the country would be something that would be incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

GRASP OF CATHOLIC TEACHInG “TEnUOUS”?

Unfortunately, Cardinal McElroy’s ideas of what does and does not constitute “Catholic doctrine” have been questioned by many.

Theologian, former professor and Catholic podcast host Larry Chapp points out that when it comes to sexual morality, McElory’s grasp of Catholic teaching is a bit tenuous.

McElroy, he says, “has not hidden his desire for major changes in Church teaching on issues including the ordination of women to Holy Orders and the entire edifice of Catholic moral theology in matters relating to sexuality. He has also proposed a model of Eucharistic discipline that would open the reception of Holy Communion to those Catholics who live in what a traditional moral theology would consider a gravely sinful state. That list would include sexually active cohabitators, the divorced and civilly remarried, and ‘LGBTQ’ Catholics.”

Chapp also observes, “Cardinal McElroy is also on record, in a now famous essay in America magazine, as saying the Church needs to drop

the distinction between those who have a same-sex orientation while remaining chaste, and those homosexuals who are sexually active: ‘The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the

L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not.’

“All of which implies that Cardinal McElroy does not consider such sexual activity to be of much moral and/or spiritual importance,” he concludes.

MCELROY’S OTHER BAGGAGE: CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE CASES Another reason Chapp calls McElroy a “controversial cardinal with heavy baggage” is McElroy’s record in San Diego of declaring the bankruptcy of the diocese, often leaving clergy abuse victims out in the cold when it came to pecuniary compensation.

In fact, McElroy’s record of handling sexual abuse claims is not good: he apparently ignored the warnings of the late psychologist

Richard Sipe, an expert on clergy sexual abuse, about then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s repeated abusive behavior.

More disturbingly, he is also accused of not only ignoring, but attempting to cover up, complaints about a diocesan priest who was grooming young women for Satanic ritual violation. One of the young women, Rachel Mastrogiacomo, did not allow herself to be put off by the diocese and pursued justice through both church and legal channels over a period of years — with indifferent success.

The priest in question was finally convicted of ritual sexual abuse and laicized, but did no prison time and has gone on to active involvement in the Protestant church.

This all happened under thenArchbishop McElroy’s watch; he failed to act when Mastrogiacomo reported the priest to the diocese, as she later found out other young women had done also.

As the recently retired holder of the Fr. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Dr. Janet Smith, remarked in her recent article on the case, “The story makes quite inexplicable the appointment of McElroy to the cardinalate for a Church that claims to care about victims.”

WHOSE DIOCESE IS IT, AnYWAY? Will sparks fly between the Archbishop of Washington, DC and the Trump administration over the next four years? Almost certainly.

Will Cardinal McElroy prove to be a sound choice to head the diocese of the nation’s capital? One group of voices that seems to have gotten short shrift in answering this question are the Catholic faithful who actually live in his diocese.

As one commenter observed, “I wonder how the good people of the Archdiocese feel knowing their Archbishop was selected based on politics, and not the needs of the local community?”m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 21

OBITUARY

Bishop RichaRd Williamson has passed aWay The “twice excommunicated” catholic bishop his name will be forever linked with the tragic spiritual conflicts of our time n BY ROBERT MOYnIHAn

B

ishop Richard Williamson, forsince the Second Vatican Council merly of the Society of St Pius X (1962-1965).

(SSPX) died on Wednesday, January Therefore, studying the life and 29, 2025 at 11:23 p.m. GMT. path of Williamson can be important He was 84. for understanding the twists and His name will be forever linked turns taken by the Catholic Church as with the tragic spiritual conflicts and a whole in these last decades. confusion of our time — the late Williamson was born in London.

20th and early 21st century — as the His father was in business; his mothRoman Catholic Church has passed er an American. He studied at Winthrough a profound crisis of identity, chester College, then at Cambridge authority, and faith as it has grappled University, where he took a degree in with modernity, various forms of English Literature. scientific and technical progress, Originally an Anglican, he and the “synthesis of all heresies,” entered the Roman Catholic Church modernism. See Pascendi Dominici in 1971. Then, in 1976, after having gregis (“Feeding the Lord’s Flock”) traveled to Econe, Switzerland and a papal encyclical subtitled “On the studied at the traditional Catholic Doctrines of the Modernists,” proseminary there, he was ordained a mulgated by Pope Pius X on SepCatholic priest by French Archbishtember 8, 1907. The first paragraph op Marcel Lefebvre, who had foundreads (italics added): “The office ed the Society of St. Pius X (recall, divinely committed to Us of feeding Pius X was in 1907 the author of the the Lord’s flock has especially this encyclical cited above), in 1970.

A 2009 photo of the Bishop Richard Williamson, duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, formerly of the SSPX, who died January 29, 2025 During the 1970s and 1980s, to guard with the greatest vigilance Archbishop Lefebvre was under the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the attack from progressives in Rome, but he was not excomprofane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge municated until 1988, when, on June 30 in Econe, he confalsely so called. There has never been a time when this secrated four bishops to succeed him, against the explicit watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to will of Pope John Paul II. the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy One of those four was Williamson. of the human race, there have never been lacking “men It was Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, Prefect of the Conspeaking perverse things” (Acts xx. 30), “vain talkers and gregation for Bishops, who declared that Lefebvre and seducers” (Tit. i. 10), “erring and driving into error” (2 four men whom he had consecrated, among whom was Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of Williamson, were excommunicated. Then Pope John the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days Paul II reaffirmed the excommunication in his motu proincreased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely prio Ecclesia Dei on July 3, 1988. new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the So Williamson was “out of the Church” that he had Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s joined in 1971. kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, However, Williamson’s excommunication was lifted lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and in 2009, by Pope Benedict XVI, who sought to reconcile lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We with the SSPX community, and bring them all back into have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetunion with Rome. fulness of Our office.”

However, Benedict quickly said, a few days after liftIn fact, the story of Williamson’s life mirrors or exeming the excommunication, when the world press pubplifies, in a number of ways, the tensions, divisions, dislished news about Williamson’s views on the Holocaust, agreements and disunity that the Church has experienced that he regretted lifting the excommunication, and that he 22

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

would not have lifted it if he EXPELLED FROM THE SSPX had known of those views of As Williamson faced legal Williamson. problems in Germany, he evenWhat were those views? tually began to face problems Wikipedia writes: “Citing inside his “home,” the Society the pseudoscientific Leuchter of St. Pius X. report, Williamson denied that In August 2012, Williamson millions of Jews were muradministered the sacrament of dered in Nazi concentration confirmation to about 100 laycamps and the existence of people at the Benedictine MonNazi gas chambers and praised astery of the Holy Cross in Nova Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.

Friburgo, Brazil. The society’s During an interview on SwedSouth American district superiArchbishop Lefebvre, on June 30, 1988 in Econe, ish television recorded in Novor, Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, consecrated four bishops to succeed him. ember 2008, he stated: ‘I beprotested against his action on One of those four was Richard Williamson lieve that the historical evithe SSPX website, saying that it dence is strongly against, is hugely against six million was “a serious act against the virtue of obedience.”

Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as In early October 2012, the leadership of the SSPX a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler,’ and ‘I think that gave Williamson a deadline to declare his submission, 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration instead of which he published an “open letter” asking for camps, but none of them in gas chambers.’” the resignation of the Superior General. On October 4, [Note: The Swedish television show, recorded in 2012, the Society expelled Williamson in a “painful deciNovember 2008, was not aired until sion” citing the failures “to show respect the evening of January 21, 2009 — just and obedience deserved by his legitimate hours after Pope Benedict lifted the superiors.” excommunication of Williamson at So the Anglican who became a Cathmid-day on January 21, 2009.] olic, who joined the SSPX (one of the A huge controversy erupted. more traditional Catholic groups) only to Jewish groups demanded that Benbe excommunicated from the Catholic edict’s lifting of the excommunication Church for agreeing to be consecrated a be reversed. The Vatican declared that bishop against the Pope’s will, but who “in order to be admitted to episcopal had been re-integrated into the Church functions within the Church, (Wilagain by Pope Benedict in 2009, only to liamson) will have to take his distance, be placed under severe restrictions when in an absolutely unequivocal and pubhis Holocaust views became known, was lic fashion, from his position on the now expelled from the SSPX for “disobeShoah, which the Holy Father (i.e., the dience.” (A complicated sentence to Pope) was not aware of when the summarize a complicated life journey.) excommunication was lifted.”

SECOnD EXCOMMUnICATIOn? But the lifting of the excommunicaAfter leaving the Society, Williamson tion was not reversed. (The separate Excommunicated Italian Archbishop Carlo consecrated Jean-Michel Faure, Tomás question of whether any Pope has the Maria Viganò, left, with Archbishop Richard de Aquino Ferreira da Costa, and Gerardo right to excommunicate anyone beWilliamson in an undated photo posted Zendejas as bishops in 2015, 2016, and cause of their opinions on historical January 29, 2025, on X by Archbishop Viganò.

It seems that the meeting may 2017. Because of these consecrations, he events, and not on Church moral or have been sometime in 2023 may have been excommunicated latae doctrinal teachings, was never adsententiae from the Catholic Church again in 2015. This dressed.) has never been officially stated, but, according to Church For three years, 2009 to 2012, Williamson suffered the law, he ought not to have consecrated other bishops withconsequences of stating his views on the Holocaust. He out the approval of the Pope.

In this sense, some people was brought to trial multiple times in Germany for both refer to Williamson as the “twice excommunicated” Holocaust denial and “inciting racial hatred,” convicted, Catholic bishop. appealed multiple times, and again found guilty multiple Let us pray for all the shepherds — all the thousands times. His fine, originally 12,000 euros, was progressiveof bishops — in the Church, and also for Bishop Richard ly reduced due to his penurious condition to 1,600. He Williamson.May the Lord have mercy on his soul, and refused to pay. [Note: What happened after this refusal is may he rest in peace.m not clear.]

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

23

INTERVIEW

“LeT’s be demoCraTiC and LisTen To boTh The Living and The dead” The bishop of LaCrosse, WisConsin, on synodaLiTy, The WesTern ConTraCTion of The ChurCh, and The neW breed of young priesTs n BY BARBARA MIDDLETOn FOR InSIDE THE VATICAn

B

ishop Gerard Battersby, 64, the diocesan priesthood suited my was installed in 2024 as the personality and gifts better.

11th bishop of the Diocese My family was very important of La Cross, Wisconsin. Bishop to me, and I couldn’t imagine my Battersby was a “late vocation” — life without some closean increasing phenomenon of the ness to them. As I matured 21st century Church; as much as in my vocation, I was freer 50% of seminary students fit this to see the beauty in a relidescription in many dioceses. He gious order vocation but graduated from Wayne State Unithe diocesan charism of versity in Detroit with a degree in ministering as a father to a biology after planning to go to parish family remains deeply medical school. Instead, though, attractive. he found employment in the pharHow did your family react to maceutical industry, then later in your decision to enter the semihis father’s business, before decidnary? ing to enter the seminary when he My parents were happy for me was in his 30s. but they were concerned that Inside the Vatican corresponshould be happy as a priest. My Bishop Battersby’s coat-of-arms.

His motto “In Sinu Patris” (“in the bosom of the Father”) dent Barbara Middleton spoke siblings and friends were mostly is a short version of the passage in John’s Gospel, 1:18: with Bishop Battersby about his supportive. Some people thought “No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God who is vocation as a priest and a bishop in it was a logical choice, others less in the bosom of the Father, has revealed him” contemporary society and the sure. One of my friends told me challenges facing the Catholic Church in 2025. that some of my friends thought I had “sold out” — to what, I’m not sure, but somehow to The Man. Barbara Middleton: What would you highlight One of the things that surprises me is that a lot of my about your early life and how that influenced your friends saw this as more of a career move rather than a vocation? movement of the Holy Spirit. Not perceiving the mystical Bishop Gerard Battersby: I grew up in a multi-generanature of the Church, only the institutional side makes tional household. My dad’s mom and dad lived with us so sense to them. A vocation to the priesthood is a call within we had the pleasure not only of eight siblings but also my the call of discipleship. While everyone is not called in grandparents, and also aunts and uncles from time to time. this way, everyone is called to following Christ and seekMy grandparents were devout Catholics who attended ing to become holy as our Father in heaven is holy, daily Mass when they were able, and a daily afternoon through a devout sacramental life and a life of imitative rosary would be recited along with the Seven Sorrows of virtue.

Mary devotion.

What do you think the Church can do to inspire My longest memory of growing up included, beyond young people to choose a religious life? the normal rhythm of daily life, a large dollop of laughter.

The Church can and will inspire young people by livIt is, besides love, my deepest memory of growing up. ing the Catholic faith with integrity of heart. Young people Why did you choose the diocesan priesthood rather are sensitive to incongruity, that is, the profession of faith than a religious community? without a concomitant living of the faith. As a Christian The priests who served our local parish were diocesan rock group wrote many years ago, professing Christ’s clergy. My uncle was a diocesan priest, and it simply was name without following him is something unbelievers what I knew. During the seminary years I discerned a posfind unbelievable. If we who are Jesus’ friends are not sible vocation to the contemplative life, but soon realized inspired by him, how can we expect others to know that 24

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

Cardinal Raymond Burke with Bishop Gerard Battersby, the 11th bishop of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, at his installation.

Cardinal Burke, the 8th bishop of LaCrosse, was one of Bishop Battersby’s predecessors.

Bottom, Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, known for its orthodox priestly formation program

What does synodality mean to you, and how do you knowing Jesus is the single most important thing that can see this being implemented in the Church? happen to any human being?

It seems to me that the vision of the Fathers of the SecHow do you think we can effectively prepare our ond Vatican Council foresaw and intended that an everpriests to face the challenges of contemporary society? deeper listening to the Holy Spirit be part of the renewal Grace builds on nature. Our society is not good at formintended by the Council Fathers. Synodality is a coming ing mature and healthy young men and women. For a pertogether of bishops and now consultative groups so that son to be fully alive in Christ they must be fully human. the fullest listening to the Holy Spirit may be accomDeveloping, in a balanced and mature way, the authentic plished. virtues of men and women will enable them to understand The infallibility of the sensus fidelium is an important their own dignity and espy in Christ a dignity worthy of teaching of the Council Fathers — but it is only true when their own self-gift. Man has been made in God’s image the sensus fidelium is in union with the and likeness; in Christ they are made bishops of the Church. Rogue elements capax dei. Their dignity is such that only can never be received, and ideological a worthy expenditure of life and their gifts action is always contrary to the moveon something noble is fitting for one element of the Holy Spirit. vated by grace to such a degree.

I believe the recent Synod in Rome is What are your thoughts on the an effort to be faithful to the vision of the Eucharistic Revival taking place in the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, American Church right now? endeavoring to implement their vision in When I talk to bishops all over the our present context. Synodality is a way country, many have a sense that the Holy forward when it is not an agendized lisSpirit is acting in a particular way to bring tening, but a faithful listening to the about renewal. The Eucharist is at the movement of grace, which is not disconvery heart of our faith, it is a mystical renected from the movement of grace presentation of the cross. It is the place down through the history of the Church. where salvation is found; the sacraments us not just listen to each other, but flow from the opened side of Christ, the “MARIAN RENEWAL WILL let Let us listen to the Apostles, the early pattern for discipleship is raised up before all creation: that the blood of ACCOMPANY EUCHARISTIC Church Fathers, the Magisterium of the ages, the saints, men and women skilled Christ defeats man’s bitterest enemy, RENEWAL” in listening to the Holy Spirit. Let us death. be democratic and give both the livThe fruit of the sacrifice is bread ing and the dead a chance to offer and wine transformed by the words the fruit of their listening. of the Only Begotten Son, that by Some parts of the Church are the power of the Holy Spirit we are going through a period of conmade living tabernacles, that we traction: merging/closing parishmight, as Archbishop Allen es, fewer priests, lower Mass Vigneron wrote in his Pastoral Letattendance, etc. What do you ter, Unleash the Gospel, reproduce think is the future of the Church in our lives the self-gift of Christ, in these areas? being sent to do what St. Matthew The Church experiences the ebbs records Jesus saying before he and flows of demographic moveAscended, “Go therefore and make ment, natural disasters, wars and plagues. North Africa disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the was the most vibrant part of the Church in the world; in [a Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (cf. Matthew 28:19) period of] decades she became an outpost of Christians.

It is my sense that the Eucharistic Renewal that is Times change; what cannot change is our focus on Jesus presently occurring was preceded by, and will be accomChrist. panied by, a Marian Renewal as well. Mary is first in the There is the apostasy of a significant segment of the Body of Christ, where Christ is, and she appears with all Church. The future of the Church in these regions, formerthe Church in her train, gathering as always at the foot of ly centers of faith, is a smaller and perhaps more vigorous the cross — seeking aid and comfort, graces on behalf of future where the Catholic infrastructure will be limited Christ’s people. Pope St. Paul VI wrote in his apostolic much more than in the past. letter, Marialis Cultus, that Mary is intrinsic to the But the Church does not rise or fall on the vagaries of Eucharist; the one who stood at the cross of her Son stands demographics, but she sees the movement of a small band with her children, in an identical way, at the Eucharistic of witnesses, down through the centuries, moving toward banquet from which all grace tends and flows.

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

25

INTERVIEW BIshop GERaRd BaTTERsBy a denouement of history where the One who rose, victorious over sin and death, will be Lord of all and whose enemies will be placed under his feet. We have nothing to fear; we only need to press into the truth of Jesus’ Lordship, and with the tools he gives us in every age, proclaim him and carry his love into the world and time in which he has seen fit to place us.

Some teachers in our Church have voiced concerns about younger priests. You spent part of your ministry in seminary formation. What are your insights on this younger generation of men?

I had the privilege of being part of a formation team at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. When I was ordained, there was much complaining about the younger priests too. They were “too conservative.” I didn’t know what that meant then and I don’t know what it means now.

If Jesus is who he says he is, then pressing into that truth with every fiber of our being is the single most important thing we can do.

Loving Jesus isn’t a political stance but a movement of the heart. I wasn’t conservative, I was set ablaze with encountering him anew. The generation before me had the task of implementing the vision of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. This was a heady time and a time of experimentation — sometimes irresponsible experimentation, unfastened from scripture and Tradition.

Yes, the recently ordained are from a different generation than their forebears, but the problems to be faced are different too. The previous generation’s task was consol-

idation of teaching of Vatican II, the present generation’s is the implementation of Vatican II in a way which is consistent and faithful to the living Magisterium. Pray for them, and if you must criticize, do it with more than a hint of charity.

There have been several stories in recent years of priests clashing with their bishops, resulting in the phenomenon of “cancelled priests.” What accounts for the rise in this phenomenon?

In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells his apostles that whosoever listens to them, listens to him and to whom sent him. (Luke 10:16) Do we believe that? If we don’t then our problem is with Jesus. If we do believe that then we must admit that trusting Jesus’ words is essential but not easy. He’s telling us to listen to bishops who unlike himself are not impeccable. It is a sacrifice to be obedient, to listen, but it is what Jesus bids us do if we trust him. Are there flawed bishops and flawed decisions? Of course, it has always been so. What glory we give to God when we trust how he has made his Church!

I think a rise in the number of so-called cancelled priests is directly related to the internet platforms which can outsize one’s estimation of their wisdom and relevance. I personally would be happier if my priests concerned themselves with clicks on confession counters and not clicks on a blog site…. If we want holier bishops and priests, we need only fast and pray. God will never ignore such entreaties. Just don’t think God has appointed you as evaluator of souls unless he has explicitly done so.m

Larragas’ New Book Inspiring and Insightful!

“

Insightful book that tackles a wide range of spiritual themes with depth and clarity. The author’s genuine passion for the subject matter shines through the pages, making it a compelling read for individuals seeking to deepen their understanding of faith and spirituality. While some chapters may challenge certain belief systems, the book encourages open-mindedness and thoughtful introspection, ultimately inviting readers to embark of their unique journeys towards spiritual enlightenment.

“

Purchase today on Amazon

26

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

REVIEW

pope’s new autobIography: Hope It’s the memoIr of “a complex and contradIctory mInd” n BY CHRISTInA DEARDURFF

O

n January 14, in time board (they had purchased, but for the beginning of never used, their tickets) in the Jubilee Year of order to emigrate to Argentina, Hope, Pope Francis’ latest where relatives had already book was released: a memoir settled previously. entitled Hope: An AutobiograThe subsequent reports of phy. the poor souls lost at sea, and In an interview the previthe knowledge that there ous month, Pope Francis had would have been no Jorge said the book was originally Bergoglio had his grandparplanned for publication folents boarded that ship, have lowing his death. “But since been a constant reminder to I’m not dying (he laughs), him, he says, of the vulnerable they’re afraid that it will lose and needy migrants who cross relevance and they decided to the seas in peril of their lives. do it now,” the Holy Father Hence his visit to Lampetold Argentine journalist dusa in 2013, which he Bernarda Llorente. addresses in his book: Above, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, pictured Reviewers were quick to as a young priest (in back, second from left), and his family members. point out that there were no “I felt I had to go to Lampedusa…

Right, Pope Francis’ latest book has earth-shaking revelations in its When I heard the news of yet another been released: a memoir entitled Hope: An Autobiography pages. shipwreck just a few weeks before, the Co-authored by Italian publisher Carlo Musso, Hope was thought kept coming back to me, like a described by Stephen White of the National Catholic painful thorn in my heart. The visit had Reporter as “less autobiography than it is an aggregation of not been scheduled, but I had to go. I already existing stories, interviews, speeches and history that too had been born into a family of are already known about the now-88-year-old pontiff.” migrants—my father and my grand- parents, like so many Nevertheless, it fleshes out, by way of anecdotes from his other Italians, had left for Argentina and knew the fate of life — even if we have heard many of them before — some those who are left with nothing. I too could have been among of the influences that have helped shape his occasionally starthe outcasts of today, so that one question is always lodged in tling opinions and surprising actions as Pope. my heart: Why them and not me?”

As Mike Lewis wrote on the website Where PeterIs.com, “Hope is in some ways a reflection of the wild ride Pope FranHe also warns against a “distorted populism” which, he cis has taken us on since his claims, drives some peoples Left, first phase of the rescue of passengers from the Princesa Mafalda, the ship called the “Italian Titanic.” election in 2013: often unprein the developed world to Right, Lampedusa, 2013: Pope Francis lays a wreath in memory of Right,dictable and surprising, restrict immigration of Afrimigrants who died on their journey to Europe also accessible, engaging, and cans and Asians. What he never boring.” does not address are the phenomena of social disintegraTHE PRInCESS MAFALDA tion — like the roving MusAnD LAMPEDUSA lim rape gangs currently vicIn its first pages, the scene timizing indigenous British is dramatically set with a girls, to take just one example description of the doomed — that has arrived with the voyage of the Princesa Mafalsudden and massive influx of da, the ship (called the “Italmigrants who do not share ian Titanic”) that Jorge BerWestern cultural or moral valgoglio’s grandparents did not ues.

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 27

reView

PoPe’s new autobiograPhy: hoPe

Unfortunately, he seems to treat this “acceptance” as a basis for the statement at one point that “Homosexuality is not The Bergoglio family descended from Italian immigrants a crime, it is a human fact.” He says this in the context of conto Argentina. His paternal grandparents, along with his father, demning societies whose civil laws penalize harshly the pracMario, came to “La Merica” in 1929 to escape Mussolini’s tice of homosexuality. fascist rule, unaware, of course, that the Great Depression Not grappled with is the fact that homosexuality is called was about to deal them a crushing blow. in Genesis one of the “sins that cry out to Heaven for But after the financial disaster laid them low, they steadily vengeance.” And calling it merely a “human fact” does not do worked their way out of the rubble to build up a small busijustice to the ramifications, the physical, emotional and moral ness to support their growing family. devastation, that active homosexSo the Pope comes from a uals actually suffer. All sin is a background of working-class “human fact”; yet, all sin is a type people who had their share of of bondage from which repenmisfortune, and he grew up amid tance frees us, not least for our the poverty of nearby barrios own spiritual and temporal good. and, as a priest, also ministered to the poor. He saw much injustice, “ALL WAR IS EVIL” especially at the expense of the Jorge Bergoglio’s paternal poor and working classes, which, grandfather fought in the trenches he says, even moved his grandfain World War I. “Nono described ther to become a political “radithe horror, the pain, the fear, the cal.” absurd alienating pointlessness of Later, as a bishop, he witthe war,” recounts Francis. “But nessed the persecution of the also moments of camaraderie common people at the hands of a murderous political regime, from Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Archbishop, pictured celebrating Mass between enemy troops….ordiin 1998 in a poor section of Buenos Aires, Argentina. nary folk who communicated as whose clutches he himself risked Bottom, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Cardinal, traveling best they could with signs and his position, his freedom, even in 2008 on the subway in Buenos Aires, Argentina gestures…” his well-being, to help various The filthy, sick and harassed people escape. soldiers in the trenches eventualHe has always been a friend of ly found that the “enemy” were those who are “victims” in one “poor wretches like themselves, way or another – victims of a capwith the same scared and watery italist system that is generally gaze, sinking into the same mud, unmoored from morality, of suffering the same torment.” political power that oppresses, of Who would not grow opposed war and violence, of an abortion to horrible and ultimately senseindustry that he has compared to less wars after hearing such firsta “hitman.” hand accounts?

So it is perhaps natural that “The intelligent war does not Jorge Bergoglio became a Jesuit; exist,” he says. He decries all war, one could call it a characteristic which Our Lady at Fatima called of the modern Jesuit order, the a “punishment for sin” – and the fact that the large-scale general interpretation of the Gospel as primarily a call from destruction of innocent human lives is almost universally God to rescue the “poor,” in whatever sense poverty occurs. orchestrated by people who are insulated from its immediate It is not an unreasonable interpretation of the Gospel, if effects. one counts the spiritual poverty of all of us sinners. And furHe poignantly describes the intense suffering of the Japanther on in the book, he does precisely this. “Truly, we are ALL ese civilians in Hiroshima, as related by the then-future Supe‘the poor,’” he says, “and all in need of the saving grace Jesus rior General of the Jesuits, Fr. Pedro Arrupe, who was present brings into the world through the Church.” when the city was decimated by the H-bomb at the end of It may flow from this that Francis has extended such a perWorld War II. sistent hand of welcome to those in the embrace of the LGBT Yet, in a somewhat contradictory tone, he mentions how and transgender ideology. he was moved at the sight of the thousands of white crosses Again, he cites here the example of his family, who, at Normandy, where, he notes with approbation, “thousands despite the customary avoidance of families in “irregular” of soldiers killed in just one day in the fight against Nazi marital situations, “were on friendly terms with everyone.”

THE BERGOGLIO FAMILY

28

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

atrocities.” Surely he here concedes that there is some element of the “just war” theory that is valid? Yet, a paragraph later, he says that “Anyone who makes war is evil.”

No wonder the UK’s Catholic Herald described Pope Francis as manifesting in his book his “complex and contradictory mind.”

OSTEnTATIOUS PIETY

recognized, is a challenge that is more urgent than ever before.”

Later on, he confirms an underlying assumption that excluding women from positions of power is a form of unjust “discrimination” that the modern world is rightly leaving behind, saying that “the discrimination and professional limitation of women are a disgrace to our societies that pride themselves on being modern and developed.”

He says the Church needs to be “demasculinized,” while simultaneously admitting that “to ‘masculinize’ women would be neither human nor Christian,” and that allowing women into the clergy is not the answer. He attempts to solve the dilemma, it seems, by the promotion of women on equal footing with men everywhere — except in the ordained clergy. It may be a kind of “middle way” but it is sure to please neither feminists nor traditionalists.

Francis is nothing if not consistent in his distaste for the highly decorated, pre-Vatican II-style sacred vestments now only seen among the more traditionally-minded clergy. Those priests, he complains, are often inclined toward “clerical ostentation,” wearing “elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets…” and warns, “These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited.”

Then elsewhere he confusPATER, SI; MAGISTER, es us by quoting Gustave nO? Mahler, the Romantic comYet, through it all, it is difposer, on the subject of tradificult to doubt that Francis’ tion: “‘Tradition is not the heart is “in the right place.” worship of ashes; it is the He is a loyal son of the preservation of fire.’”

Church, but also a victim, per“Tradition is not a musehaps, of the all-pervasive um; it’s a guarantee for the modernism of the 20th centufuture,” Francis continues. ry, the cross of our own times.

“The idea of continually The famed American conreturning to ashes is the nosservative thinker William F. talgia of fundamentalists, but Buckley, a Catholic and a disthis must not be the true sense senter from Paul VI’s Humanof the word: Tradition, ae Vitae, once said of the The presence of women desired by Pope Francis, instead, is a root that is essenChurch: “Mater, si. Magistra, fully in the “spirit of the times,” underlines the theme of “synodality” of the Synod of 2024 tial for the tree always to bear no” — for which he was rightfruit.” ly criticized. Some, perhaps You would be hard pressed to find even the most outspojustifiably, apply the same formula, not to the Church as a ken traditionalist who disagrees with that statement. whole, but to our current Pope: “Pater, si. Magister, no.”

And yet, Francis at his best is a teacher — when he reiterWOMEn AnD A “FEMInInE” CHURCH ates and brings new life and emphasis to the never-changing Following a number of surprising appointments of women truths of the Faith, as when he speaks on the overarching to key Vatican positions, Francis told Italian interviewer theme of this book: Fabio Fazio January 19 that he is appointing another woman “Hope is a real and tangible experience. Even secular in March, Sr. Raffaella Petrini, to head the Governatorate of hope… But Christian hope is infinitely more than this: It is Vatican City State. the certainty that we are born no longer to die, that we are born Francis talks in his book about his desire to appoint more for the pinnacles, to enjoy happiness. It is the awareness that women to high positions in the Church, citing the idea that the God has always loved us, and will always love us, and never Church is feminine because she is the “bride of Christ.” Then, leaves us alone. The apostle Paul says: ‘What will separate us however, he seems to make the leap to a resulting need for from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecumore women in positions of power, saying, “The Church is tion, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? [. . .] No, female because she is the bride. And she is the holy faithful in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him people of God: men and women together. For this reason, who loved us’ (Romans 8:35–37). identifying new methods and criteria for ensuring that women “Christian hope is invincible because it is not a desire. It is are more fully involved and play a key role in the various the certainty that we are all traveling, not toward something spheres of social and ecclesiastical life, so that their voices that we want to be there, but something that is already have an increasing weight and their authority is increasingly there.”m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

29

OPINION

PoPe Francis and “The Peace algoriThm” — a russian ProPoses a “new PaTh” n BY LEONID SEVASTIANOV

tions that bring together opposing sides and enable peaceful coexistence. His vision seeks not to identify a “strongest” winner but rather to construct a shared space of mutual respect and stability. For Pope Francis, true victory lies in cooperative projects and dialogue, aimed at facing the immense challenges of our time, such as climate change and space exploration.

Rome’s Historical and Cultural Role as a Unifier Pope Francis draws inspiration from the legacy of ancient Rome — Pax Romana, a period Pope Francis in 2019, before the Ukraine war, meeting with Leonid of peaceful coexistence that once Sevastianov and his wife, Russian opera singer Svetlana Kasyan unified diverse cultures. Europe, Russia, America, and Asia share Rome’s “IN A TIME OF POLITICAL oday, the world faces unprecedented cultural heritage. By revisiting this archechallenges, including the crisis within typal unity, the Pope suggests rethinking POLARIZATION, international institutions established Rome’s role as a symbol of global reconcilTHE VATICAN’S NEUTRALITY in the wake of World War II. Organizations iation. With the secularization that has seplike the United Nations have lost their effi- ALLOWS IT TO BE PERCEIVED AS arated politics from religion, the principle A UNIQUE SYMBOL OF PEACE cacy in influencing global dynamics. The of “Cuius regio, eius religio” no longer UN’s inability to reform itself and the applies. Rome’s historical value as a symAND A RELIABLE MEDIATOR” absence of consensus-building mechabol for the unity of nations remains intact, nisms within the Security Council leave it however, not through religious identity but struggling to resolve both political and through shared cultural and historical roots. humanitarian crises.

The Vatican as a Neutral Ground At a time when traditional international for Dialogue bodies seem unable to offer sustainable Since its establishment as a modern entisolutions, a new mediator figure is needed ty in 1929, the Vatican has adhered strictly — one with international credibility and the to neutrality in international relations. This unique ability to bridge divides across commitment is embodied by figures like deeply opposed perspectives.

Pope John Paul II, who condemned the Iraq Pope Francis embodies this potential. As War and attempted to mediate between a figure who transcends religious and culSaddam Hussein and the United States, and tural boundaries, he offers an alternative Pope Benedict XVI, who criticized the war approach known as the “peace algorithm,” in Libya. which pursues peace not through military Pope Francis continues this mission by victories but by creating conditions in engaging with leaders around the globe, which all parties feel they have won. including Erdogan and Modi, while fosterThe Peace Algorithm: Unity Rooted ing respectful relationships with both in Shared Values and Cultural Heritage China and Russia. In a time of political Since the beginning of the conflict in polarization, the Vatican’s neutrality allows Ukraine, Pope Francis has advocated for a it to be perceived as a unique symbol of “peace algorithm” based on finding solupeace and a reliable mediator.

Leonid Sevastianov, 46, is a leadeer of the “Old Believers” in Russia, a Russian Orthodox religious community which maintains liturgical rites in their pre-1660s form.

Sevastianov, husband of international opera star Svetlana Kasyan, is a friend of Pope Francis and has acted as a sort of “unofficial mediator’ between the Pope and Russian officials. He and his wife have met in Moscow and Rome with the editors of Inside the Vatican. Sevastianov wrote the text below

T

30

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

HEAD OF UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: “NO REQUEST FOR VATICAN MEDIATION HAS BEEN MADE” n his Christmas Urbi et Orbi mesItiations sage, Pope Francis called for negobetween Ukraine and Russia

Mediation is a certain diplomatic mechanism that has certain prerequisites. to end the war triggered by Russia’s I remember, the head of papal invasion of Ukraine in 2022. diplomacy, the Vatican Secretary of The Pope said “boldness [was] State, Cardinal Parolin, immediateneeded to open the door” to dialogue ly outlined what the conditions were. “in order to achieve a just and lasting First, both sides had to agree to it and peace” between the two sides. had to ask. And next, they had to be Speaking to thousands of people ready to implement certain recomgathered in St Peter’s Square, the mendations that the mediation would 88-year-old Pope declared: “May the offer. sound of arms be silenced in war-torn At the moment, none of those conUkraine,” and beyond. “I invite every ditions exist. And over the past year, individual, and all people of all we have seen and heard so many nations... to become pilgrims of mediators...

Someone even called Pope Francis meets with Major Archbishop hope, to silence the sounds of arms the Prime Minister of India, perhaps, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian and overcome divisions,” he said. among the most successful mediaCatholic Church (photo-Grzegorz Galazka) Just one day before, in a Decemtors. Now the political situation after ber 24 interview with RBC-Ukraine, Major Archbishop Svithe US elections has changed everything again. atoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic The Vatican is not performing any mediation mission Church (UGCC), clarified that the Vatican is not currently and no one has asked for such a mission. Even from the mediating between Ukraine and Russia because no such other side, there was a sharp statement from our president request has been made: [Zelensky], who said that we don’t need mediators, we need RBC-Ukraine: In your opinion, can the Vatican act as allies. And to this question, too, there was a very serious a mediator in potential peace negotiations, that is, not reaction from the Vatican: well, let’s think about where, in only on the issue of the release of prisoners, the the plan for the victory of the President, the Vatican can be exchange, the release of children, but also in more an ally. global political matters?

And it is precisely the humanitarian part of this plan, then Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk: This issue is called “President Zelensky’s peace formula,” that the Vatibefore me personally, I have been working on it since 2014. can chose that part of this peace formula that somewhere That is, almost 10 years. Since the occupation of Crimea, falls under the competence of the Church, which is a subour Donbas, began, because the war has been going on for ject of international law. And here the Holy See is very not three years, but much longer. methodically and consistently trying to do what it can for the And today I can, or rather, I must say that such mediation benefit of Ukraine. is not taking place. Because there are certain conditions.

—ITV staff/RBC-Ukraine

A Peace Plan for Ukraine: Toward Reconciliation The Vatican’s recent peace proposal for Ukraine includes several critical measures: The repatriation of children under international supervision, underscoring the humanitarian aspect of the conflict.

A reciprocal exchange of prisoners of war, with commitments to keep these individuals out of combat.

An amnesty for those convicted of criticizing authorities on either side, reinforcing the importance of freedom of expression.

The lifting of sanctions against relatives of Russian oligarchs as a gesture of goodwill.

These measures aim to create an atmosphere of trust, laying a foundation for further progress toward peace.

A New Global Order: An Independent Platform for Dialogue Pope Francis has proposed creating an independent, neutral platform for resolving international conflicts, positioning the Vatican as a hub for dialogue. In a world where genuinely neutral states are increasingly rare, the Vatican remains a credible and neutral entity. This unique status

offers a chance to foster a new world order focused on sustainable peace and the prevention of revanchism.

Conclusion: A Global Vision for Unity and Justice Pope Francis’s peace algorithm is a path toward fair coexistence, rooted in cultural values and historical respect. In a world where the separation of religion and politics is often complete, the Vatican as a symbolic center of Rome could become a new unifying force. This approach sees compromise as a key to stability, where each party feels victorious.

To bring the conflict in Ukraine to an end and achieve a just peace, we must consider broadening Pope Francis’s mandate by recognizing him as an essential mediator between all sides of the conflict. The Vatican, and Pope Francis himself, have no vested interest in prolonging the conflict. They seek only peace and reconciliation. Endowed with such a mandate, Pope Francis could propose an effective, just solution capable of halting suffering and restoring stability. Strengthening his role is a critical step toward achieving a genuine and lasting peace, as his unique position of neutrality and independence could indeed be the decisive factor for securing stability in a fragile world.m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

31

EASTER ESSAY

A Pledge of Our Own Resurrection Jesus fulfilled hundreds of Old Testament prophecies, but the most astonishing was His own: On the third day, I shall rise again The words of the angels who greeted the holy women outside of Jesus’ tomb tell us all we need to know: not only has He risen from the dead, but He has fulfilled His own prophecy.

In fact, Jesus recapitulates all of salvation history in this way: He fulfills the prophecy that began in the Garden of Eden (“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring”) and continued throughout the history of the Chosen People.

It is we — each one of us — who are the heirs and beneficiaries of this fulfillment. He has overcome death: not only His own, but ours as well. Let us rejoice: Alleluia!

Awake, Arise and Remember

A metaphorical resurrection it wasn t Jesus gave us... the real thing n BY AnTHOnY ESOLEn

A

long time ago, I was present at a heated discussion between one of my colleagues, a Catholic who taught English literature, and a liberal Dominican priest. The priest said he was not certain that Jesus rose from the dead. Since the resurrection is the center of our faith and the great promise it offers to man, my colleague was astonished. “What do you tell the people at Mass?” she asked.

“Oh, I keep this opinion to myself,” he replied, with an air of sadness and condescension.

“But if you believe it is true,” I joined in, “why do you hide it?”

He had no answer to that. There was, mingled with that sadness, also the whiff of death and corruption.

Let us be clear. The people in Jesus’ time knew that dead bodies remain dead. They were closer to death than we are. There were no funeral directors to keep the unpleasant details of bodily corruption away from the loved ones.

That is why the holy women went to the tomb on that Easter morning. But that tomb turned out to be empty.

Or rather it was not empty, because two young men appeared there at the entrance, dazzlingly bright. That filled the women with awe, and they fell to their faces before them (Lk. 24:5).

The words we translate as tomb, Greek mnema (Lk. 24:1) and mnemeion (Jn. 11:38), have a strong verbal force, one which I wish to bring out, to counter what that priest of tenuous faith had to say about it. We may think of it as a memorial, where people go to remember someone who is no longer with us. We understand that only the dead are remembered in this way, as no one erects a memorial to the living.

Nor were the people in those times prone to gauzy reflections about how the dead are still with us “in the spirit,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

Dead was dead. “It’s been four days,” said Martha of her brother Lazarus in the mnemeion, “and he will be stinking” (Jn. 11:39). That too is why the holy women brought their spices, their aromata (Lk. 24:1).

But the ironic thing about the women’s situation, as also about the

32 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

disciples on the road to Emmaus and the apostles in hiding, is precisely that they have forgotten what Jesus said, or not understood it. That is, they must have taken as a mere figure of speech what Jesus had said.

“Remember,” say the young men (Gk. mnesthete) that “the Son of Man had to be given over to the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the third day he would rise again” (Lk. 24:7). You do not have to be a modernist professor of theology to know what a figure of speech is. What but a figure of speech was it, so people thought, when the prophet said that the name of the Messiah would be ‘Immanuel, meaning “God among us”?

(Is. 7:14).

They could not have conceived of the Incarnation. As Jesus was Immanuel quite literally, in the flesh, so He arose quite literally, in the flesh. If He did not arise, we may say that he was not Immanuel either, but only a prophet. Even the best of dead men is dead, and his words begin to fade. Yet “Heaven and earth shall pass away,”

The Three Marys at the Tomb by Italian artist Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia. The three Marys find the tomb... empty

said Jesus, “but my words will never pass away” (Mt. 24:35).

If Jesus did not rise, his words there are mere madness; but since even to His doubters Jesus has appeared to be the sanest man who ever lived, and since the apostles had no way to conceive of what he meant other than that there was some mysterious figurative meaning he intended, they must have thought, “Perhaps He will explain this to us someday,” and left it at that.

He would explain it by His resurrection.

And what is that, the Resurrection?

Let us be as literal and as physical as possible. The women expected to find a corpse, lying where it had been laid, with the uneasy odor of decay already about it, since the Sabbath evening fell before they had time to anoint the body.

But they are, say the angels, seeking the living among the dead. “He is not here,” they say. “He is risen” (Lk. 24:6). The Greek verb egerein, means to rise up, as in arms; to cause or bring into being; to rouse or stir up; to

awake. And what does a person do as soon as he wakes? He gets up: he stands. That is the meaning of Greek anastenai, to rise up, to stand: what the angels say Jesus has done (24:7). That is what the verbal noun anastasis denotes: resurrection, standing up.

Imagine entering the memorial, then, having forgotten what Jesus said, forgotten it by never having understood it to begin with, and seeing that the body you expected to find there has awaked and gotten up, standing on his two feet, going to meet them in Galilee.

Of course, that is not all that the Standing-Up of Jesus means, not by far. The seed gives rise to the green plant. What is sown in corruption, says Saint Paul, arises in incorruption (1 Cor. 15:42). The resurrection is not a resuscitation. Lazarus, we may say, was resuscitated, and although he woke up and stood again, he would again fall asleep and fall prey to death. This world of things we in our mortal bodies can see and touch is, shall we say, hypo-dimensional, a flatland embedded within a greater reality, so that what ap-

pears to us as inexplicable may, even apart from any special miraculous intervention by God, be but the result of the ordinary action of objects in that higher reality. In any case, one greater than Lazarus is here.

But whatever will be revealed to us about the glorified body in the resurrection of the dead, this much we must believe: it will be not less physical than what we know now, but more; not less alive, but quicker, livelier; not less sharply defined in the individual features of personhood, but more, so that even though the saints are all members of the same genus of mankind, in glory they will shine with the particularity which the angels preeminently and essentially enjoy.

Let the hazy metaphors go slumbering down their way to the fog and sludge of hell, where sinners resemble one another in dreary sameness, as one pile of bones looks much like another.

Metaphorical resurrection be damned.

Jesus gives us the real thing. Let us remember that and leave the memorials behind.m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 33

EASTER ESSAY

Christ gives us the certainty of our own resurrection Et resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas

On the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures.

PoPe Benedict XVi GEnERAL AUDIEnCE, MARCH 26, 2008, EASTER WEEK (EXCERPTS)

D

ear brothers and sisters, we must constantly renew our adherence to Christ who died and rose for us: his Passover is also our Passover because in the Risen Christ we are given the certainty of our own resurrection. The news of his being raised from the dead never ages and Jesus is alive for ever; and his Gospel is alive. “The faith of Christians,” St Augustine observed, “is the Resurrection of Christ.”

34 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

Detail of the sculpture of The Risen Christ by Pericle Fazzini in the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican.

Opposite page, Holy Saturday, March 22, 2008, in St. Peter’s Basilica. Easter Vigil in the Holy Night presided over

by Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father blesses the Easter candle (Grzegorz Galazka)

T

he Acts of the Apostles explain it clearly: “God has given assurance to all men by raising him [Jesus] from the dead” (17:31). Indeed, his death did not suffice to demonstrate that Jesus is truly the Son of God, the awaited Messiah. How many people in the course of history devoted their lives to a cause they deemed right and died for it! And dead they remained.

The Lord’s death reveals the immense love with which he loved us, to the point of sacrificing himself for us; but his Resurrection alone is our “assurance,” the certainty that what he said is the truth which also applies for us, for all times.

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 35

EASTER ESSAY

I

t is important to reaffirm this fundamental truth of our faith whose historical veracity is amply documented even if today, as in the past, there are many who in various ways cast doubt on it or even deny it. The enfeeblement of faith in the Resurrection of Jesus results in weakening the witness of believers. In fact, should the Church’s faith in the Resurrection weaken, everything will come to a halt, everything will disintegrate.

On the contrary, the adherence of heart and mind to the dead and Risen Christ changes the life and brightens

the entire existence of people and peoples. Is it not the certainty that Christ is risen which instills courage, prophetic daring and perseverance in martyrs of every epoch? Is it not the encounter with the living Jesus that converts and fascinates so many men and women who from the beginnings of Christianity have continued to leave all things to follow him and put their own lives at the service of the Gospel? “If Christ has not been raised”, the Apostle Paul said, “then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (I Cor 15: 14). But he was raised!

Resurrection panel from the Colmar Polyptych by Matthias Grünewald (c.

1512-1516), painted for the monastery of St. Anthony in Isenheim, near Colmar, in Alsace in eastern France. The monastery specialized in hospital work and the monks were noted for their care for plague victims. Christ is represented as a radiant and blond star, which pulsates and flies in the starry universe.

Opposite page, The Disciples Peter and John Run to the Tomb on the Morning of the Resurrection, a work painted in 1898 by the Swiss painter Eugène Burnand

36 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

T

he proclamation we listen to constantly in these days is exactly this: Jesus is risen, he is the Living One and we can encounter him; just as the women who had gone to the tomb met him on the third day, the day after the Sabbath; just as the disciples encountered him, surprised and dismayed by what the women had told them; just as so many other witnesses met him during the days following his Resurrection.

And after his Ascension, Jesus also continued to be present among his friends as he had promised: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28: 20). The Lord is with us, with his Church, until the end of time. Illumined by the Holy Spirit, the members of the early Church began to proclaim the announcement of Easter openly and fearlessly. And this announcement, passed on from one generation to the next, has come down to us and every year at Easter rings out with ever new power.

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 37

EASTER ESSAY The Incredulity of St Thomas by Benjamin West (1738-1820) Temple Newsam House, Leeds Museums and Galleries, England

T

hroughout the liturgical year, particularly in Holy Week and Easter Week, the Lord walks beside us and explains the Scriptures to us, and makes us understand this mystery: everything speaks of him. And this should also make our hearts burn within us, so that our eyes too may be opened.

Dear brothers and sisters, may the joy of these days strengthen our faithful attachment to the Crucified and Risen Christ. Above all, may we let ourselves be won over by the fascination of his Resurrection. May Mary help us to be messengers of the light and joy of Easter for all our brethren. Once again, I wish you all a Happy Easter.

38 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

The Resurrection of Christ in Film Since the dawn of moving pictures on celluloid, filmmakers have been trying to tell “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” recognizing, each in their own way, how universally compelling is the narrative of our salvation accomplished by one Man. Current news has it that American-Australian film actor, producer and director of 2004’s record-breaking The Passion of the

KING OF KINGS (1961) Jeffrey Hunter portrays Jesus in this classic retelling of His life.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (1964) This Italian film is another word-for-word adaptation of the Gospel, this time of Matthew, in the “neorealist” style, using noname actors and filmed on location rather than in a studio.

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965) An Eastertime TV staple in Christian households in the later 1960s and early 1970s, this film was an ambitious, bigname epic starring the legendary Max Von Sydow as Jesus.

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973) Based on the rock opera musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jesus Christ Superstar is a loose adaptation of the Gospels. The USCCB gave it an A-III rating, meaning that while not morally offensive, some elements require a mature perspective; some Catholics may find liberties taken with the Gospel story to be off-putting.

JESUS OF NAZARETH (1977) Directed by Franco Zeffirelli, this film was among the first of the more “realistic” portrayals of Jesus and his disciples, while no less faithful to Bible accounts than its predecessors. Robert Powell, with magnetically blue eyes, stars.

JESUS (1979) Another word-for-word adaptation of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is reportedly the most-watched movie of all time.

THE VISUAL BIBLE: MATTHEW (1993) The Visual Bible: Matthew is another word-for-word adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew and follows all the major events that occurred in this chapter of the New Testament, and features several talented actors such as Richard Kiley as

Christ, Mel Gibson, has begun working on a sequel, “Resurrection” — creating high expectations that “Resurrection” will fulfill the promise of its predecessor.

Here is a brief glimpse at some of the many attempts to capture on film the greatest event recorded in the history of the world: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Old Matthew and Bruce Marchiano as Jesus.

THE VISUAL BIBLE: ACTS (1994) Directed by Regardt van den Bergh and featuring an all-star cast that includes actors like James Brolin and Dean Jones, The Visual Bible: Acts serves as a word-for-word adaptation of the Acts of the Apostles from the Bible.

THE MIRACLE MAKER (1999) The Miracle Maker is a stop-motion animated film which features an incredibly large cast of high-profile, A-list actors such as Ralph Fiennes as Jesus, Richard E. Grant as John the Baptist, Ian Holm as Pontius Pilate, and David Thewlis as Judas Iscariot.

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004) Controversial at its release for its unflattering depiction of the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time, it is considered one of the most authentically-portrayed films about Jesus Christ, played by Jim Caviezel.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN (2003) While The Gospel of John does achieve its goal of being incredibly faithful to its source material, some have criticized the film for including Mary Magdalene in the Last Supper scene as the Gospel of John does not explicitly state that she was present. The film features a talented cast of actors like Henry Ian Cusick as Jesus Christ and Christopher Plummer, who narrates the film.

SON OF GOD (2014) Diogo Morgado plays Jesus in this traditional story of the Savior that begins with his humble birth and concludes with his resurrection.

RISEN (2016) New Zealander Cliff Curtis is Jesus in this story of the Resurrection as seen through the eyes of a Roman military tribune, played by Joseph Fiennes.m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 39

FOOTSTEPS On ThE WAY

“ShaRe The hope in youR heaRTS” 2025 Jubilee of Hope Diary: The Jubilee of CommuniCaTion, held in Rome on JanuaRy 24, 2025 n BY AnnA ARTYMIAK* In these photos, the two key “nerve centers” of communication in the Vatican: the Holy See Press Office main hall and the Vatican Radio conference room

This year, January 24, the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, marked the very CAPABLE OF MAKING US FELLOW first big event of the current 2025 TRAVELERS...”

Jubilee Year after the opening of the Holy Doors in St. Peter’s on December 24. hanks to the eyewitnesses and chroniclers of the The Jubilee of World Communication began today [at time, we know that 725 years ago, in 1300, the St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome. very first Jubilee Year was declared. The Catholic The organizers wanted the media and communications history of Jubilee Years started then. One of those chropilgrims to be welcomed by the City of Rome, Archbiniclers was a certain Cardinal Iacopo Stefaneschi, who shop Rino Fisichella, head organizer of the Jubilee wrote De Centesimo Seu Iubileo Anno Liber (“Book on events, said. the Hundredth or Jubilee Year”); Jubilees were originalIt was a beautiful evening, though chilly, even inside ly set to take place every one hundred years. the Basilica, after a day that had been very sunny and In it, Stefaneschi said that a great multitude came to hot. In the beginning, it seeRome from many countries, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the 2025 Jubilee Year organization, during a briefing with journalists med that there would be arriving around Christmas almost nobody in attendanEve, 1299, with the single ce. Most of the pilgrims arriintention of receiving an ved at the very last moment, indulgence in commemoraand passed through the Jubition of the dawn of a new cenlee Holy Door. tury. The streets were crowdI was touched by the peoed, says Stefaneschi, with so ple who came for the event, many people from near and far their spiritual concentration. that, at times, many feared You could see that they came being crushed by the throng. to live the event profoundly, Thus began the first official to have their own jubilee.

Jubilee, declared by Pope There were many communiBoniface VIII in the February cations professionals from 22, 1300 Bull Antiquorum their dioceses. Among the Habet.

Note: This report is from Polish journalist Anna Artymiak’s diary for January 24, 2025.

T

40

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

“I DREAM OF A COMMUNICATION

Below, Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed the first official Jubilee with the Bull Antiquorum Habet on 22 February 1300.

Bottom, the original manuscript is now preserved in the Vatican Apostolic Library

pilgrims from around the world, there were also some bishops and members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications.

JAnUARY 24: A SIGnIFICAnT DATE The January 24 date is not accidental. There are a few reasons for this.

First of all, St. Francis de Sales is a patron of media and communications professionals. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, head of the 2025 Jubilee Year organization, noted this at a briefing today at the Holy See Press Office.

Secondly, this feast day is also the World Day of Social Communications. This year is the 59th edition. It is a tradition that the Pope on that day releases his “Message to the World of Communications.” Francis did so today, under the title “Share with Gentleness the Hope that is in your Hearts.”

In it, he invited journalists to be communicators, not only of events, but of hope, and to “disarm” communication so as not to ever use it as a weapon.

THE PEnITEnTIAL LITURGY Archbishop Fisichella said that the scheme of each of the major events of the Jubilee would be basically the same, but there is a particular and intriguing element which is only part of the Jubilee of the World Communications: the Penitential Liturgy.

The Penitential Liturgy has become increasingly popular thanks to Pope Francis who introduced the tradition of the so-called “24 Hours for the Lord,” on the Friday before the 4th Sunday in Lent. Tonight the confessions were available in English, Italian, Spanish, and also Japanese.

There were lines to confession — 60 priests were asked to hear confession, including some bishops.

The Penitential Liturgy started with an entrance procession with a relic of St. Francis de Sales: his heart.

Then, it was laid in front of the altar.

Fr. Giulio Albanese, an Italian Comboni missionary and journalist who worked for many years in Uganda and Kenya, conducted the liturgy in both Italian and English.

He founded the agency MISNA and collaborates with many Catholic news outlets, mainly Italian.

He warned those present not to be “mercenaries” of the words of others, but to be carriers only of what is true.

It was followed by Holy Mass celebrated by Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the Pope’s Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome. He referred to the Pope’s “Message for the World Day of Communications,” repeating the necessity of being “communicators of hope” and “disarming communication.”

The Pope had said in this message: “Too often today, communication generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred.

All too often it simplifies reality in order to provoke instinctive reactions; it uses words like a razor; it even uses false or artfully distorted information to send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt. On several occasions, I have spoken of our need to ‘disarm’ communication and to purify it of aggressiveness. It never helps to reduce reality to slogans… I dream of a communication capable of making us fellow travelers, walking alongside our brothers and sisters and encouraging them to hope in these troubled times. A communication capable of speaking to the heart, arousing not passionate reactions of defensiveness and anger, but attitudes of openness and friendship.

A communication capable of focusing on beauty and hope even in the midst of apparently desperate situations, and generating commitment, empathy and concern for others. A communication that can help us in ‘recognizing the dignity of each human being, and [in] working together to care for our common home’ (Dilexit Nos, 217).”

COMMUnICATInG THE EXPERIEnCE OF THE JUBILEE But there also comes to mind a third reason why having the first major event of the 2025 Jubilee Year on the feast of St. Francis de Sales makes sense.

“If one lives spiritually the experience of the Jubilee, he is capable then to communicate it to others,” said Archbishop Fisichella. His words in fact define the essence of journalism: you have to be a witness to bear the truth to others. It is often not an easy task!

Now, it is the mission of the journalists of 2025, like me, to tell the world what is happening in Rome during this Jubilee Year of Hope.

*Anna Artymiak, a Polish Vatican journalist and correspondent for Inside the Vatican, will continue her “Jubilee Diary” during the Holy Year.m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

41

SCRIPTURE

What is a body?

What it means to be a member of the body of Christ n BY AnTHOnY ESOLEn*

Left, Christ, the Church and its members, in a 14thcentury fresco by Giusto de' Menabuoi, in the dome of the baptistery of the Cathedral of Padua, Italy Opposite, in a painting by Francesco Paolo Priolo, St. Paul, during his 4th journey of evangelization, meets the Christian community of Syracuse in Sicily

I

like very much the conversation that Milton’s Adam has with his Creator in Paradise Lost, after the first man has named all the beasts, but, he says, “I found not what methought I wanted still.” The Creator tests him, saying that surely he is not in solitude, what with all the living creatures round about him, for “they also know, / And reason not contemptibly.”

But Adam persists. He seeks fellowship, he says, “fit to participate / All rational delight, wherein the brute / Cannot be human consort.”

God will not let him go at that. “What thinkst thou then of me and this my state?” God asks, since He is “alone / From all eternity,” nor is Adam yet aware of the Father and the Son as distinct persons. And not only is God alone, but even the highest of His creatures are inferior to Him by “infinite descents / Beneath what other creatures are to thee.” How then can God be happy, alone?

God is leading Adam along to consider the divine nature as compared with human nature. Adam then draws a fit distinction between God and man, a distinction implying an infinite distance in being, impassable except by God’s own descent. “Thou in thyself art perfect,” he says, “and in thee / Is no deficience found.”

Milton here expects his more careful readers to understand the inner meanings of the Latinate words perfect and deficient. What is perfect has been made to completion, but what is deficient has been made to lack something. Of course, he does not mean that God is 42

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

made. Rather, man by his nature, even the innocent Adam in Eden, enjoying communion with his Creator, is made so as to need more than what is in himself, and not just to be raised to heaven, but to live happily on earth. That means he needs other people: But man by number is to manifest His single imperfection, and beget Like of his like, his image multiplied, In unity defective, which requires Collateral love and dearest amity.

Man, then, is a social being to the core, and therefore also, though Milton does not draw out the implication, an ecclesiological being to the core. He is to be a member of the body, the Church.

Here we must recapture the fullness of Saint Paul’s more-than-metaphor, when he calls the Church the Body of Christ, and notes that not every gift is given to every member: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:27-31).

Both, rather, insist that in the fully human life of First, to be a member in a body is not to be the body mutual giving and receiving, we require “collateral love as a whole. We are not God; we are not, to return to what and dearest amity,” as Milton puts it, or Paul’s “more Milton’s Adam says of God, “through all numbers excellent way,” the way of charity which he describes so absolute, though One.” That implies not only a finitebrilliantly and movingly in the verses that follow the ness in what we know or what we can perform or what ones I have cited. Such charity cannot thrive when the we see, but a finiteness with regard to other members of members treat the Church as a club which they might the body. We need them, and for more than practical join or not, according as they enjoy a certain fellowship needs, as Paul suggests. or a taste of “spiritual” living.

That is because, second, to be a member in a body is The love that binds the members instructs every man to understand that you do not even exist, properly speakthat he is for the others, and that they are for him, so that ing, except as a member. The lie at the heart of the sin of to insist upon equality, as individuals who join a club are pride is that we can be ourselves, alone. “I am my own,” wont to do, is to miss the point entirely. Love tells me not says Satan at the bottom of Hell, because that is what the only that it is good that my dear friend is a priest, but also bottom of Hell is – an everlasting existential lie and the that it is good that I am not a priest, as sometimes God ultimate of lies, the refusal of a creature to be a creature gives us a gift by withholding and not God, which implies the the gift from us, that we will refusal of a rational creature to seek it in someone else, and be a member in a body. find it in love.

Third, to be a member in a These reflections, I say, are body implies a special relationas far removed from the current ship, one that is obscured by our chatter about “diversity” as it is current habit of viewing all possible to be. I am not simply things in mechanistic ways. noticing that people who insist There are two forms this misapupon diversity are often the plied mechanism assumes. One most intolerant enforcers of arises from our forgetting that conformity you will ever meet. the parts of a machine are not I say also that any diversity like the members of a body. A that is but a cover for ideologimachine, in fact, is but an imita“THE LOVE THAT BINDS THE MEMBERS tion of an organism, at best a INSTRUCTS EVERY MAN THAT HE IS FOR THE cal uniformity imposed from above, as upon human ants in a rather clunky and simplistic imiOTHERS, AND THAT THEY ARE FOR HIM” collective, or that is but a cover tation. The parts of a machine are for individualism in faith and morals, as we hear from not aware of one another. If one of the cylinders in your people who would overturn Scripture itself (let alone car misfires, your air conditioning knows nothing of it. nature as created by God) to cordon off their habits, usuThe parts of a machine do not really interact. They act ally but not always sexual, from moral scrutiny, is to by contiguity of one sort or another, as a gear with a gear. destroy the meaning of both member and body.

But in a body, the sorrow of the hand affects the whole It is as if a member were to say to the body, or the body system; a bee-sting sets blood and brain and lymph in to the member, “I do not need you,” and thereby lose the motion; a cold breeze on the neck is felt also by the heart; good of both. in this way, each member cares for all the members. The human members of the Church, moreover, are each in * Dr. Anthony Esolen, currently a faculty member at themselves fully endowed with the image of God, and Thales College in North Carolina, has been a thus are never to be reduced to atoms in a vast collective, professor of literature and humanities for 35 years no more than the members are replaceable parts of a and is the author or translator of more than 30 books, machine. The Church is social, not socialist; a commuwhich include a range of English translations, nion, not communist. analyses of culture, literary and Biblical criticisms, The first mistake is like unto the second, which is to meditations on modern education, meditations on the conceive of the body as a mere group, a grab-bag of indiChristian life, and original poetry. viduals, with a variety of talents. It is true that no one Dr. Esolen also serves as a senior editor and human being can combine in himself all the talents of regular writer at Touchstone magazine, has every human being in the world; not all can play the published well over 1000 articles in various violin, not all can conceive of the curvature of space, journals, and publishes a web magazine not all can climb Mount Everest. But that is not dedicated to language, music, poetry, and what Milton’s Adam is thinking of when he notes classic films called Word and Song with his wife, the imperfection of man, nor what Paul is thinking Debra.m of when he notes the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit.

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

43

SPIRITUALITY BEHIND BARS

“By the Blood of the lamB and the Words of our testimony...”

We must each sanctify our oWn sphere of influence... even if it is in a prison n BY MARCELLUS ALLEn ROBERTS *

This artist’s depiction of the crucifixion is entitled Compassion. It is by 19th-century French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

righteousness into my life. I figured that since God had proven true to His word by allowing me to reap the fruit of the wickedness that I had sewn, sowing righteousness ought to carry t was supposed to be a gangster the same weight and authority. party. Five separate gangs had all But up until this point I had little gone in together to throw a Halevidence and even less confidence loween party on H block. They had that God wanted me to serve Him cooked up enough prison wine to with the skills I had developed in my down an elephant and a respectable past life as an entertainer. Yeah, he selection of illicit drugs were made had given me a few songs here and available to the inner circle of each there since I had confessed to my clique. crimes. But these were the most intiOn this unit, each cellblock has mately prayerful songs I had ever one common area that is shared by all written, nothing like anything I had of its 192 residents. It’s called the written while I was outside of His “day room.” grace. How do you perform a personal When one security threat group prayer? Is that possible? decides to celebrate, everyone else in As I prayed and asked God about the day room is a disinterested spectawhether to participate, I discerned tor at best, or an innocent bystander if that my Father was asking me to make things take a turn for the worst. There His presence known and represent is always the choice to stay in the cell, Him in the contest. I chose a song in a but even the best of cellmates need style that my audience could relate to: time alone, solitude to maintain a a southern, sing-song, Gulf-coast-rap healthy mental state. Everyone evendelivery that I was certain would hold tually finds themselves in the day their attention long enough to receive room at some point. The sooner you the message. The chorus was lifted get used to it, the better. from the Joachim Neander hymn, Weeks before the Halloween party, “There Is a Fountain,” its one verse a sign-up sheet was posted in the day written a year prior. room. Turns out that the gangs were “YOU’RE GUILTY. BUT THERE’S But one verse wouldn’t be enough. hosting a talent contest to serve as A PLACE YOU CAN GO...

I spent the two weeks leading up to the entertainment for the night. Each party crafting a new verse and practicgang would enter their own champion TO THE CROSS OF CHRIST, ing at work when I found myself in the competition, but to make things HE CAN SAVE YOUR SOUL...” alone in the wash bay of the sign interesting, they opened it up to anyplant. Those new lyrics went like this: one else on the cellblock who might want to enter. There was also a twenty-five dollar payout to the winner — “Everybody falls short of the glory of God. prize money collected from each gang to lure out unafYou can’t erase the stains. filiated talent.

Filthy rags is all you’ve got.

I had turned my life around. Hosea chapter 10, verse You can’t double back or rewind the track 12 is the Scripture that I had been inspired to take up as It’s written in permanent ink. the theme for my prison sentence. The first two years of No matter how you try, you deserve to die my sentence were almost solely focused on sowing Note: This essay is by a prisoner in a jail in Texas, who through his writing wishes to bear witness to Christ.

I

44

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

and tuning their antennae to the frequency of the Liturgy, enter their own sphere of influence unafraid to fulfill the obligation our “Ite missa est” professes.

The second half of this Second Vatican Council century will be a season of leaf-budding for bare branches.

Some trees neither fruit nor flower without a minimum The night of the party I was the fourth performer. The number of hours spent in below-freezing temperatures. three performers before me were all affiliated gang I choose to view the Council and the last fifty-plus years members. The subject matter of their offering was what of its implementation in that light. What I won’t do is you would have expected: crass, violent, decadent and deny the Holy Spirit’s active participation in the Counsexually explicit — all reflections of my former way of cil. What I do believe is that life. When my name was after winter, there must come called, there were audible WHAT I DO BELIEVE IS THAT spring. snickers from the intoxicated AFTER WINTER, THERE MUST COME SPRING There was stillness in the judges’ panel. I walked up to air when the song ended. the beatmaker and beat-boxed Then the day room erupted in the mental drum pattern I had applause, hoots and cheers so written the lyrics to (there’s sincere as to sober the almost always one guy on a shocked judges. It was undecellblock with exceptional niable that I was, hands rhythmic skill who can bang down, the crowd favorite. out a bumping groove on the But the judges bickered stainless steel tables). amongst themselves.

The beatmaker had no diffiI competed in two extra, culty picking it up, fueling that trumped-up rounds before the gangs unanimously connervousness that a poor performance now could overshadceded the victory to me. In the second round I sang a ow all previous performances. song entitled, “Washed Away,” which was birthed durI had an advantage, though. I was a nobody. Having ing a meditation on Psalm 51. Then I triumphed in the arrived on the unit only twenty days prior, nobody knew third round with these lyrics, sung full-throated and a what to expect from me. So as I began nodding my head capella, without a beat: to the rhythm, a hush fell over the entire day room: Bloods, Crips, AB’s, Tangos, Folks, Woods, solos, disinterested “The just live by faith. I’ve answered the call. spectators, innocent bystanders — everybody.

God’s just to forgive, if I confess it all.

The words of my recently written first verse came He’ll keep my feet from a slip and a fall. flowing out smooth and soulful. But when I realized the And I’ll give Him praise behind prison walls.” room was hanging on my every word...just like that — “bloop!” — my mind went blank. I had forgotten the As Catholic writer George Weigl said in his book To words halfway through the first verse.

Sanctify the World, “That was why a Council was necBoos came hurtling at me from all sides, cackling essary: to... empower a revitalized Church to offer the from every corner. And as the heckling rose in my ears, modern world a path beyond incoherence — or, worse, something difficult to describe also rose up inside me. self-destruction -—through an encounter with Jesus Maybe it was adrenaline, or perhaps it was pride lashing Christ, the incarnate Son of God.” out to defend a bruised ego. I believe it was akin to what We have been supplied the proper tools; there is no Samson experienced before he slew a thousand looking back.

Philistines with the donkey’s jawbone. I became bold as If God has called you to sanctify the rectory, trust that a lion, wagging my index finger at the hostile crowd and he has called someone to sanctify the rec yard. Parents, barking orders at the drummer to “Run that beat back!” sanctify your children. Kitchen workers, sanctify the This time the first verse came roaring out, and a chow hall. I’ve got the day room covered. silence deeper than the last settled among the slackLet us all go in confidence and peace, remembering jawed audience like they were eyewitnesses of a resurthat it has been prophesied that we defeat the enemy by rection. In that moment, I wasn’t singing; I wasn’t rapthe Blood of the Lamb and the words of our testimony.... ping; I wasn’t even performing. I was preaching from my proper place, a space the priest couldn’t reach: one *Marcellus Allen Roberts is a 42-year-old Prison of the myriad nooks and crannies that make up the lay Oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas, person’s pulpit. The wider world will be sanctified by an serving a 25 year penance in the state of Texas.m emboldened laity, who, after receiving the Sacraments Simply for the thoughts you think.

No matter what you do this will still be true, You’re guilty. But there’s a place you can go To the Cross of Christ, He can save your soul....”

MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

45

C AT H O L I C I S M A n D O R T H O D O X Y

The Message of the Icon

BY ROBERT WIESnER

THE CREED: THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD “I LOOK FOR THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME. AMEN!”

S

t. Paul states in First Corinthians (15:17) “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” The resurrection of Jesus is the single most astounding and important miracle He ever performed: the dead can come to life again!

Lazarus, the widow’s son in Naim and the daughter of Jairus were precursors of this momentous event, but they did eventually die again, presumably after living good and full Christian lives. Jesus’ resurrection was of an entirely different order, though. He had no outside help in rising from the dead. He Himself voluntarily laid down His life and He Himself took up His life again, and what a life it was!

Jewish theology did have some idea of the resurrection of human bodies, as Martha indicated at the tomb of Lazarus; it was a hazy notion at best.

But the Body of Jesus Christ after His resurrection clearly showed what we can expect in our own individual cases.

There are some interesting abilities, such as suddenly appearing in locked rooms, but that is almost a parlor trick compared to certain other characteristics.

The wounds Jesus suffered in the crucifixion were still visible, as St. Thomas attested, but there was no pain when he probed the wounds! The nail marks and the gash in His side were a badge of honor; one might speculate if St. Lawrence might still bear the imprint of the grill on his body, or St. Stephen might yet proudly display his battered state. page 46

We are told that there is no hunger in heaven, but we see Jesus eating a piece of broiled fish and preparing a picnic for the apostles. Food, it seems, might still be eaten, apparently for the sheer joy involved. We are told that Jesus will enjoy wine once again with His apostles in the Kingdom.

The Gospels do not mention whether Jesus had anything to do with animals after His rising, but if humanity is restored to the original state of innocence one might reasonably expect to have a Bengal tiger for a pet or even a black mamba if you appreciate reptiles. After all, lions are going to lie down with lambs; presumably elephants will no longer be frightened of mice and wolves will not slaughter sheep. There will be no more hunger or weariness, pain or disease. Our relationship with the world will be fully restored to Adam’s original state in the Garden of Eden, which did, incidentally, involve eating! (Spiritually, we will no longer have to worry about that deadly fruit.)

A major feature of the life to come is the amazing fact that we are actually incorporated into His family circle (see the icon above).

We are children of the heavenly Royal Family by adoption through our baptism. We are not divine by nature, of course, but the grace of God allows us entrance to the family estate. But even further than that, we are actually able to claim a certain blood relationship to the family of God, for the Eucharistic Blood of Jesus our King runs in our veins as well!m

InsideTheVatican.com t UrbietOrbiCommunications.com t +1-202-536-4555

East-West Watch

BY PETER AnDERSOn

THE GREEK AnD SYRIAC ORTHODOX In SYRIA TODAY Patriarch John X, the head of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in Syria.

Below, in the circle, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He declared Greece’s support for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate that is now the largest Christian denomination in Syria, followed by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate

O

n December 8, 2024, the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed. The Assad family had ruled Syria through oppressive measures since 1971. The collapse occurred as the result of an offensive launched on November 27 by armed opposition groups headed by the organization Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

HTS had previously been associated with al-Qaeda and had been branded a terrorist organization by the United States in 2018. However, after launching the offensive, HTS gave assurances that it would respect the various religious denominations, including Christians.

On December 31, Sharaa met with senior Christian leaders and affirmed that Christians are an integral part of Syrian society.

The roots of Christianity in Syria go back to Apostolic times. St. Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. Antioch, then the largest city in Syria, was where the followers of Jesus were called “Christians” for the first time. Because St. Peter was involved in the founding of the Church of Antioch, the bishop of Antioch became known as a “patriarch” and was the third in importance after the Patriarchs of Rome and Alexandria.

Over the years, the Patriarchate of Antioch has been subject to divisions. In 451 many in Syria did not accept the Council of Chalcedon and became what is now the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. Those who accepted the Council became what is now the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. The latter experienced further divisions when the Maronites departed in 685 and when the Melkites left in 1724. The Maronites and Melkites are now in union with Rome.

In the 14th century (1300s), the administrative center of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was moved to Damascus, but the Church remains the “Patriarchate of Antioch.” Since 1899, all of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchs

of Antioch have been Arab Christians, but the Patriarchate retains the title “Greek Orthodox.” The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate uses the Byzantine rite, but the liturgical language is primarily Arabic. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate is now the largest Christian denomination in Syria, followed by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate.

The civil war in Syria, which began in 2011, has caused a great exodus of Christians from Syria. At the beginning of the war, it was estimated that there were approximately 1.5 million Christians in Syria. Now the estimate is approximately 300,000.

The Assad regime, in spite of its terrible human rights record, had provided Christians in Syria some protection from Muslim extremists. This was especially true after Russian armed forces came to Syria in 2015.

Historically, the Russian Empire had assisted the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch when Syria was under Ottoman rule. The presence of the Russian military in Syria beginning in 2015 provided some assurance that there would not be persecution against the Patriarchate by Muslim extremists. However, the fall of the Assad regime and the departure of Bashar al-Assad to Moscow meant that this Russian protection would now be largely eliminated.

In the face of fears that the situation for Christians would worsen, HTS has given assurances that it would respect the interests of Christians.

On December 16, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with Patriarch John X, the head of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, and declared Greece’s support for the Patriarchate. Rather than Russia, the Patriarchate may now have a new “protector” — Greece. On December 10, Patriarch John and the Patriarchs of the Syriac and Melkite Patriarchates agreed that they needed to work together for the future of Syria. These may be very good signs for the future, but only time will tell.m

InsideTheVatican.com t UrbietOrbiCommunications.com t +1-202-536-4555

page 47

C AT H O L I C I S M A N D O R T H O D O X Y

NEWS from the EAST

BY MATTHEW TROJACEK

FORCIBLY MOBILIZED UKRAINIAN PRIEST individuals responsible for wrongdoing, would not be satRELEASED AFTER A WEEK isfactory and sufficient.”

A priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was The law’s vague wording and failure to clearly explain released after being forcibly drafted for Ukraine’s army. what it requires “can result in entire religious communities On December 21, on his way home from visiting his being held responsible for the conduct of specific individwife in the hospital where she had just given birth to their uals. Furthermore, the overbroad and ambiguous formusecond child, Father Evgeny Rozhdestvensky was taken lation may put in jeopardy the right to freedom of expresfrom a mobile checkpoint to the local military recruitment sion.” The report also critiques the practice throughout center. Despite failing the medical examination, he was Ukraine of canceling UOC leases to use Church propersent on for military training. ties, “which, particularly in communities with few Six days later, his relative, Archpriest Nikolai Karchurches, may limit exercise of freedom of worship and penko, reported that Father Evgeny contribute to social tensions.” had been released.

Lastly, the report details the violent “This morning, the lawyer was able seizure of the Archangel Michael to get Father Evgeny from the military Cathedral in Cherkasy on October 17, recruitment office. Perhaps your during which members of the Orthoprayers contributed to certain amenddox Church of Ukraine put several ments in legislation, as now clergy members of the Ukrainian Orthodox have exemption from conscription, Church in the hospital, including Metand this also influenced the circumropolitan Theodosy. The UN report stances,” Father Nikolai wrote. notes that the police largely stood idly (OrthoChristian) On October 17, Metropolitan Theodosy was diagnosed by. (OrthoChristian) with burns and concussion after violent seizure of Cherkasy cathedral. (Photo: Telegram)

UN REPORT: UKRAINE’S LAW BANNING UOC IS PROBLEMATIC Ukraine has failed to demonstrate the necessity of the law it adopted in August to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, says the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Local Council of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church voted to separate itself from the Moscow Patriarchate in May 2022, as reflected in the Church’s updated statutes, though the Ukrainian state continues to brand it as a Russian Church as a justification for its legal sanctions against the Church.

The new UN report notes that the Ukrainian law invokes “national security” as a ground for restrictions on religious freedom, but “neither the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) nor the European Convention on Human Rights include ‘national security’ among the permissible grounds for such a restriction…

The dissolution of a religious organization is a severe restriction that affects the ability of individuals to practice their religion or belief together with others and threatens the viability of the community as a whole, which requires very serious reasons by way of justification.”

And despite adopting such radical legislation, Ukraine has failed to make the case for it, the UN explains: “Ukraine has not demonstrated the necessity and proportionality of this measure, such as by showing why less restrictive measures, such as measures restricted specifically to page 48

BRITISH SPIES FOILED TWO PLOTS TO KILL POPE FRANCIS IN IRAQ British intelligence thwarted two terrorist plots to murder Pope Francis during his 2021 visit to Iraq, a recent book has revealed. Hope: The Autobiography, a book by Francis co-authored by Carlo Musso, was published in January.

Spies tipped off the Vatican’s security detail that a female suicide bomber had been dispatched to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to coincide with the Pontiff’s historic visit to the city.

They learned, too, that terrorists also planned to propel a speeding truck loaded with explosives into the Vatican entourage with the aim of assassinating the Pope.

The Pope wrote: “The [Iraqi] police had alerted the Vatican Gendarmerie to a report from British intelligence: a woman packed with explosives, a young suicide bomber, was on her way to Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit.

“And a van had also left at full speed with the same intent,” he wrote.

The day after the attempted plots were expected to take place, the Pope quizzed a security official about what had happened to the terrorists.

“The commander replied laconically: ‘They are no more,’” he wrote.

“The Iraqi police had intercepted them and blown them up…This too was the poisoned fruit of war.”

InsideTheVatican.com t UrbietOrbiCommunications.com t +1-202-536-4555

Mosul, a city with a large Christian minority, was overrun by Islamic State terrorists in 2014, driving tens of thousands of refugees to the sanctuary of Kurdish-controlled Iraqi territory. (CatholicHerald)

for a January 24-29 visit, to demonstrate the Church’s unwavering commitment to Syrian Catholics and to unity among all Christians in the region.

On January 25, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Cardinal Gugerotti presided over a Eucharistic celebration at the Memorial of Saint Paul in Damascus.

The Cardinal also venerated the relics of the Martyrs of Damascus, visiting both the Latin church and the Maronite cathedral in Bab Touma. (Zenit)

PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM: THE TOLL ON HUMAN LIFE AND DIGNITY ON ALL SIDES HAS BEEN CATASTROPHIC At a critical historical moment for the Gaza region, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem expressed its thoughts and concerns regarding the ceasefire that took TEMPORARY TRUCE IN INDIAN CHURCH’S effect on January 19.

TROUBLED ARCHDIOCESE The statement focuses on its profound sorrow for the A temporary truce within the Eastern rite of the unspeakable suffering endured by the people of Gaza over Catholic Syro-Malabar Church in India was reached on the preceding fifteen months. It underscores that humaniJanuary 13. tarian aid, rebuilding of infrastructure and restoration of Priests embroiled in a decades-old liturgy dispute on trust are of paramount importance: rubrics of the Mass were hoping for a settlement of the dis“The toll on human life and digpute at the Synod of Bishops, which nity on all sides, but especially in was held from January 6 to 11.

Gaza, has been catastrophic, with On January 9, some 21 priests civilian infrastructure obliterated entered the archbishop’s house to and communities torn asunder. We press their demands, but were evictare reminded of the words of the ed by police after two days.

Apostle Paul: ‘If one member suf“The protest was called off after fers, all suffer together” (1 Corinththe new vicar, Archbishop Joseph ians 12:26). The suffering of Gaza is Pamplany, agreed to consider our a wound not only to our communidemands and hold a dialogue to ties there, but to the conscience of resolve them,” said Father KuriThe leader of the new Syrian administration, Ahmad Alhumanity. It demands a response Sharaa, meets with representatives of the Christian faith at akose Mundadan, the presbytery the People's Palace in Damascus grounded in justice, compassion, council secretary of the troubled and the recognition that every Archdiocese of Ernakulam-Angahuman being is a bearer of the divine image. maly.

“This ceasefire must serve as a bridge toward an endurThe synod in 2021 told its 35 dioceses in India and ing and just resolution, one that affirms the sanctity of life abroad to adopt the synod-approved Mass for more uniforand the dignity of all God’s children. The international mity in the Church. community, particularly those nations that champion a All except Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese comrules-based global order, must reflect on their responsibilplied with the order after some initial protests. ities. The failure to resolve this conflict, or adequately to The archdiocese’s warring priests and laity, however, address its root causes, challenges the very principles upon continue to defy the synod decree. (UCANews) which such an order is built.” (OrthodoxTimes) UKRAINIAN DIOCESE APPEALS SYRIAN LEADER MEETS CHRISTIAN FOR HELP IN RESTORING CATHEDRAL CLERICS; POPE SENDS ENVOY DAMAGED BY SHELLING Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa met senior The Zaporozhye Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Christian clerics on December 31, amid calls for Sharaa, Church is asking for help to restore the Saint Andrew’s head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), to guarantee minorCathedral in Zaporozhye that suffered serious damage ity rights after seizing power earlier in the month. over in a January attack.

Earlier in the day, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel The roof, dome, ceilings, windows, and classrooms at Barrot called for an inclusive political transition in Syria, the church were damaged by shelling on Saturday mornexpressing hope that “Syrians could take back control of ing, January 18, reports the Information-Education their own destiny.”

Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

But for this to happen, the country needs “a political At the same time, a large icon of Saint Andrew the Firsttransition in Syria that includes all communities in their Called, painted by nuns of the Saint Nicholas Convent in diversity, that upholds the most basic rights and fundaPatras, Greece, survived almost completely undamaged. mental freedoms,” Barrot said during a visit to Lebanon.

The icon also contains particles of the relics of Saint Three weeks later, the Pope announced that he was Andrew and particles of the cross he was crucified on. sending papal envoy Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti to Syria (OrthoChristian)m InsideTheVatican.com t UrbietOrbiCommunications.com t +1-202-536-4555

page 49

TradiTion and BeauTy

GreGorian Chant: Between heaven and earth n BY AURELIO PORFIRI *

I

t seems that within certain Jacques Viret, and the Amercircles of the Church, ican Peter Jeffery. Noteworthere is a sense of irritathy work in this field has also tion whenever the topic of been done by the Italian GiaGregorian chant arises. This como Baroffio. irritation is, frankly, incomAmong the various sysprehensible when considertems for organizing Gregoriing that Gregorian chant is the an chant, we find the classiChurch’s own music, officialfication into eight “modes,” ly recognized as such. Yet, referred to by the Greek term some view it as a sign of a octoechos (ὀκτώηχος). This backward-looking mentality medieval classification, as rather than an embrace of the was realized in the last cenmagnificent future that lies tury, often imposes artificial ahead. constraints on melodies.

This is, without a doubt, a Through the research of grave error. scholars such as Dom Jean “A SCHOLAR OF TRADITIONAL MUSIC, A scholar of traditional Claire (1920–2006) and, JEAN THAMAR (1909-1989), ONCE SAID music, Jean Thamar (1909– more recently, Monsignor THAT WHILE AN ORCHESTRAL MASS FILLS 1989), once said that while an Alberto Turco, the underorchestral Mass fills the standing of Gregorian modalTHE CHURCH, GREGORIAN CHANT SEEMS church, Gregorian chant ity has deepened, revealing TO FILL... THE UNIVERSE” seems to fill the universe. the presence of three “archaic The evolution of this multifaceted yet unified repermodes” based on C, D, and E. toire and its origins have been studied extensively by In the allegorical medieval period, it was also impormany historians. In the first millennium, there were vartant to interpret the ethos of Gregorian modes. Consider, ious stages of development leading to significant for example, the capitals of the monastery at Cluny, each advancements in the 9th century. These advancements representing a Gregorian mode and its “meaning.” Simeventually made it possible to notate melodies, initially ilarly, in the Summa de officiis ecclesiasticis by William as memory aids for singers, and later, with the refineof Auxerre (1150–1231), modes are analyzed allegoriment of notation, to record intervals with relative precically (Don Claudio Campesato has authored a book sion. addressing this topic).

However, we must never forget that Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is not just a world; it is an entire unioriginated as an oral tradition. Many scholars have verse. In this universe, the Word of God is interpreted approached it from an ethnomusicological perspective, exegetically and contemplatively, allowing us to comparing it to other religious traditions. Think of figapproach the texts of the Bible and the liturgy through ures like the Italian Pellegrino Ernetti, the Frenchman the lens of Gregorian chant—a true lectio divina. Yes, 50

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

you have understood correctly: who know the beauty, power, and Gregorian chant leads us, sacred expressiveness of Latin, throughout contemplation, to a the replacement with the vernacmore profound understanding ular is certainly a great sacrifice: of the word of God. It is real we lose the language of Christian exegesis, a “struggle” with centuries, becoming almost words that really matters for intruders and strangers within the our spiritual nourishment. literary confines of sacred Today, when it is so easy to expression, and thus we lose have varied translations and much of that marvelous, incommany other kinds of liturgical parable artistic and spiritual hersupport, it is really a pity that itage, which is Gregorian chant. we have to give up this magnifYes, we have reason to regret it, icent musical repertoire. almost to feel lost: what shall ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2019, POPE FRANCIS and On September 28, 2019, we replace this angelic language ENCOURAGED MEMBERS OF THE ITALIAN Pope Francis encouraged with? It is a sacrifice of inesASSOCIATION OF SAINT CECILIA WITH members of the Italian Associtimable value. And for what reaation of Saint Cecilia with son? What outweighs these highTHESE WORDS: “TOGETHER, YOU CAN these words: “Together, you est values of our Church? The BETTER COMMIT YOURSELVES TO CHANT can better commit yourselves answer seems banal and prosaic AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE LITURGY, to chant as an integral part of but is valid because it is human the liturgy, drawing inspiration DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM THE ORIGINAL and apostolic: the intelligibility MODEL, GREGORIAN CHANT” from the original model, Greof prayer matters more than the gorian chant.” ancient and splendid vestments Similarly, his predecessor with which it has been regally John Paul II eloquently exadorned; the participation of the pressed this in a Chirograph people, of this modern people dated November 22, 2003: saturated with clear, comprehen“Among the musical expressible words, matters more than sions that best meet the qualithose ancient treasures.” ties required by the notion of It is striking that the Pontiff, sacred music, especially lituronly a few years after the Coungical music, Gregorian chant cil he had so tenaciously brought holds a special place. The Secto completion — a Council that ond Vatican Council recogprescribed the use of Latin and nizes it as ‘proper to the Roman Gregorian chant — would now liturgy,’ and under equal conditions, it should be given speak, albeit elegantly, in such terms. We must recogpride of place in sung liturgical celebrations conducted nize, alongside various sociologists and scholars of reliin Latin. Saint Pius X emphasized how the Church gion, that the sacrifice of which Saint Paul VI spoke has ‘inherited it from the ancient fathers,’ ‘jealously prenot borne the expected fruits, as evidenced by the draserved it through the centuries in its liturgical codices,’ matic decline in religious practice. and still ‘proposes it to the faithful’ as her own, considUnfortunately, Gregorian chant and Latin are often ering it ‘the supreme model of sacred music.’ Thus, Greused as scapegoats, perhaps to avoid confronting the real gorian chant continues to serve today as a unifying eleand profound difficulties in the current liturgy. By doing ment in the Roman liturgy.” so, necessary and urgent measures to address this ongoWhy, then, are we now in a situation where Gregoing crisis are left unimplemented, and it is the faithful rian chant seems to face outright ostracism? This who suffer the consequences. rejection often accompanies the decline of Latin, mysteriously absent from churches despite Vati* Maestro Aurelio Porfiri is a composer, conduccan II’s recommendations for its use. In a General tor, master organist, writer and educator in Rome.

Audience on November 26, 1969, Pope Paul VI His blog on music, Cantus, is available on Substack, urged the faithful to embrace liturgical reform, stating: and his latest book, The Right Hand of the Lord Is Exalt“Here, it is clear, the greatest novelty will be felt: that of ed: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II to the language. Latin will no longer be the principal lanTraditionis Custodes, is now available from Sophia Instiguage of the Mass, but the spoken language. For those tute Press.m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

51

Of Books, Art and People

ROME: “THE CITY OF WATER” fROM ANCIENT AQUEDUCTS TO “NASONI” n BY LUCY GORDAn The Trevi Fountain is the largest and most spectacular of Rome’s fountains, designed to glorify the three Popes who commissioned it: Clement XII (r.

1730-40), Benedict XIV (r. 1740-58), and Clement XIII (r. 1758-74) Bottom, a view of Piazza Navona, which houses the fountains of Neptune, of the Four Rivers and of the Moor

R

ome is nicknamed “The Eternal City” thanks to her monuments from all periods of her history: from the legendary kings to the present. They begin with the 7th-century BC Temple of Vesta in the Forum and go up to MAXXI, her Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by the Iranian-born, naturalized British architect Zaha Hadid (19502016) and opened in 2010. However, Rome could also be nicknamed “The City of Water” thanks to her 11 ancient aqueducts, which, in the first century AD, fed 39 monumental fountains and 591 public basins, down to the latest three “nasoni” (“big noses,” that is, nose-shaped drinking fountains), installed near the Colosseum in 2024 to commemorate the 150th birthday of the very first nasoni.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, the aqueducts fell into disrepair or were demolished, and so many of the fountains stopped working.

The Fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is believed to be Rome’s oldest fountain, dating, according to some sources, to the 8th century AD and built on the site of an ancient fountain. Its first design was based on an ancient 52 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

model: a circular vasque on a pedestal pouring water into a basin below (between 1499 and 1659 it underwent reconstructions and embellishments).

Today Rome is home to more than 2,000 fountains — more than any other city in the world. Some 50 are “monumental” and were commissioned by Popes.

The earliest of these Popes was Nicholas V (r. 1447-55), who decided to embellish the city and make it a worthy capital of the Christian world. So, in 1453, almost 1000 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, he began to rebuild the Acqua Vergine, the ruined Roman aqueduct, inaugurated in 19 BC by Agrippa, the Emperor Augustus’ son-in-law. Although he didn’t commission a “monumental fountain” himself, Nicholas V had the idea. He proposed reviving the ancient Roman custom of marking the arrival point of an aqueduct with a mostra or grand commemorative fountain.

The first Pope to build “commemorative” fountains was Gregory XIII (r.

1572-85), best known as the namesake of the Gregorian calendar, which remains the internationally accepted civil calendar today. He commissioned the Fountain of

traiana, built by the Emperor TraNeptune (1574) and the Fountain jan, bringing water to the right of the Moor (1575), both in Piazbank of the Tiber, and built the za Navona; the fountain in Piazmajestic fountain Acqua Paola, za della Rotonda outside the named for him, on the Janiculum Pantheon (1575); and the founHill. Two years later, he commistain in Piazza Colonna (1577). sioned from the architect Carlo Gregory XIII’s successor was Maderno a new façade for St. Pethe Franciscan Sixtus V (r.1585ter’s Basilica, a new plan to re1590), a significant figure of the place Michelangelo’s design for Counter-Reformation and untirits interior, and the fountain ing city planner who, with his (1614), made to complement the trusted architect-engineer DomeBarcaccia Fountain in Piazza di Spagna lavish Baroque façade, in the Piaznico Fontana, immediately built a designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s father, Pietro, in 1627. za. That same year he also comnew aqueduct, the Acqua Felice, Bottom, Maderno’s fountain in Piazza San Pietro missioned Maderno to build a which fed 27 new fountains. The magnificent fountain outside the first, the Fontana dell’Acqua FeBasilica of St. Mary Major. lice (1585), designed by Fontana During this same period Paul V with a large statue of Moses in its had the Tiber’s water near the central arch, was named for this modern neighborhood Parioli anaaqueduct. Others were the Fontalyzed because of its metallic taste. na di Piazza d’Aracoeli (1589) at It turned out that the water was not the bottom of the Capitoline Hill only drinkable but curative for disand the Fontana dei Monti eases of the kidney, stomach, (1589). He also turned the axis of spleen and liver, so he commisRome from the ancient forums to sioned La Fontana dell’Acqua St. Peter’s and laid out new arterAcetosa (meaning “vinegary”) ies to connect the four main basilthere, later restored by Pope Innoicas. cent X (r. 1644-55) and rebuilt by Pope Alexander VII (r.

However, it was during the 17th and 18th centuries that 1655-67). the Popes reconstructed other ruined ancient aqueducts and Like his predecessor, Pope Urban VIII Barberini (r. 1623built elaborate fountains to mark their termini. These two 1644) commissioned several fountains, all from the sculpcenturies were the golden age of Rome’s fountains, which, tor/painter/architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. To be fair, he comnot surprisingly, are those most admired still today. They missioned the first, known as La Barcaccia, because of its were expressions of a new style: Baroque art. Crowded with boat-shape, from Gian Lorenzo’s father, Pietro, in 1627. The allegorical figures and filled with emotion and movement, other two, The Triton Fountain (1642), representing a Triton their sculptures, not their water, became their most important — half-man and half-fish — element. Water was used to aniA historical drinking fountain with a wolf’s head spout blowing his horn to calm the wamate and decorate the sculptures. in the garden of the Orange Trees on the Aventine Hill.

Right, a typical example of a “nasone” (“big nose”) today ters, inspired by a text in Ovid’s The first such fountains, yet poem Metamorphoses, and the still classical, were completed or Fountain of the Bees (1644), the commissioned by Paul V BorghBarberini family’s crest, are loese (r. 1605-21). The first founcated in Piazza Barberini near the tain, completed during Paul V’s Palazzo Barberini. papacy, was the one outside the Bernini was the sculptor of Basilica of St. John Lateran, fitwo other important Roman founnanced by the Lateran Canons untains, the twin of Maderno’s der Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592fountain in St. Peter’s Square 1605) for the Jubilee in 1600, but (1677), and earlier (1648-51), the not finished until 1607. Supposhighly theatrical Fontana dei edly, the Romans used to bathe Quattro Fiumi (“The Fountain of their hands in this fountain on the the Four Rivers”) with its statues night of the Feast Day of St. John representing the four continents (June 23) to keep away witches known at the time: the Nile, the and the evil eye.

Danube, the Rio de le Plata, and In 1610, Paul V restored the the Ganges. At the center of Piazancient Roman aqueduct, acqua MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 53

Of Books, Art and People za Navona and topped with a 54-foot ancient Egyptian obelisk, it was commissioned by Pope Innocent X, near the Pope’s family palazzo.

The Trevi Fountain is the largest and most spectacular of Rome’s fountains, designed to glorify the three Popes who commissioned it: Clement XII (r. 1730-40), Benedict XIV (r.

1740-58), and Clement XIII (r. 1758-74). Designed by the architect Nicola Salvi, it was built at the terminus of the Acqua Vergine, the ancient aqueduct reconstructed by Pope Sixtus V, on the site of a Renaissance fountain by Leon Battista Alberti. Its central figure is Oceanus, the personification of all the seas and oceans, in an oyster-shell chariot, surrounded by tritons and sea nymphs. Pilgrims for this year’s Jubilee will undoubtedly admire many, if not all, of these papally-commissioned “monumental” fountains, but will also be thankful to the some 200 nasoni (fountains with nose-like spigots) in the city center for quenching their thirst. Another some 2,500 nasoni are located in parks, the EUR (the major business district), and outlying residential neighborhoods.

Nasoni were the idea of Freemason and anticlerical Luigi Pianciani, the first mayor of Rome after the Unification of Italy, and his alderman Rinazzi (first name unknown), to provide free, continuously flowing water to his fellow citizens.

The first 20 were installed between 1872 and 1874. They were made of cast iron, weighed around 200 pounds, and were just over a meter tall. Three of these still exist today, in

54 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

Piazza della Rotonda outside the Pantheon, in Via San Teodoro between the Forum and Circus Maximus, and in Via delle Tre Cannelli, in the neighborhood called Monti. They were then called “dragoni,” not “nasoni,” because they had three lion-headed spouts at their top, resembling a dragon.

Before long, brass replaced cast iron and the three spouts became only one — long, curved, and nose-shaped: hence the name “nasoni” (“big noses”). Each spout has a small hole. If you cover the mouth of the spout with your hand, water will flow upwards through the hole and reach your thirsty mouth.

In addition to the “nasoni,” during Fascism (1922-1945) drinking fountains, called “the Imperial she-wolf,” were made using marble, and their water flowed from the head of a brass she-wolf. Some 70 of these still exist.

During the 1980s, the city government, to limit the amount of wasted water, added a faucet at the top of each nasone to turn the water on and off, but vandals stole many of the faucets. Some 35 years later, Virginia Raggi, the first female mayor of Rome from 2016-2021, tried to close down nearly all the nasoni, leaving only 85 functional, but the Romans rebelled and she had to abandon her plan. Actually, according to ACEA, the acronym for Azienda Comunale Elettricità e Acque (Electricity and Water Municipal Utility), Raggi’s plan wouldn’t have saved much water, only some 2% of all that the city uses. Let’s hope the Romans will continue to conserve this precious natural resource: fresh, free drinking water.m

THE END EXCERPTS fRom LoRD of THE WoRLD

“THE ImmoRaLITy of foRgIvEnESS” MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO, MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BEnSOn FORESAW THE RISE OF SECULAR HUMANISM, THE CONTRACTION OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND THE COMING OF THE ANTICHRIST n BY ITV STAFF Editor’s Note: The passage below is from the novel Lord of the World, written by the English Catholic convert Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson (the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury) in 1907. He attempts a vision of the world more than a century in the future — in the early 21st century… our own time… predicting the

LORD OF THE WORLD

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON (1907) BOOK II, THE EnCOUnTER, CHAPTER VIII, SECTIOn III, AnD BOOK III, THE VICTORY, CHAPTER I, SECTIOn I (Julian Felsenburg is hailed as “Lord and God”; a woman is offered as his “mother.” The Pope, in exile, reads Felsenberg’s official biography, contemplating its “sublime egotism” which alone is “capable of confronting the Christian spirit.”)

A great panting as of some monstrous life began to fill the air as the mob swayed behind Him, and the torrential voice poured on. Waves of emotion swept up and down; there were cries and sobs, the yelping of a man beside himself at last, from somewhere among the crowded seats, the crash of a bench, and another and another, and the gangways were full, for He no longer held them passive to listen; He was rousing them to some supreme act.

The tide crawled nearer, and the faces stared no longer at the Son but the Mother; the girl in the gallery tore at the heavy railing, and sank down sobbing upon her knees. And above all the voice pealed on — and the thin hands blanched to whiteness strained from the wide and sumptuous sleeves as if to reach across the sanctuary itself.

It was a new tale He was telling now, and all to her glory. He was from the East, now they knew, come from some triumph. He had been hailed as King, adored as Divine, as was meet and right — He, the humble superhuman son of a Human Mother — who bore not a sword but peace, not a cross but a crown. So it seemed He was saying; yet no man there knew whether He said it or not — whether the voice proclaimed it, or their hearts asserted it.

He was on the steps of the sanctuary now, still with outstretched hands and pouring words, and the mob rolled after him to the rumble of ten thousand feet and the sighing of ten thousand hearts…. He was at the altar; He was upon it. Again in one last cry, as the crowd broke against the steps beneath, He hailed her Queen and Mother.

56

INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

rise of Communism, the fall of faith in many places, the advance of technology (he foresees helicopters) and so forth up until... the Second Coming of the Lord, with which his vision ends. For this reason, and also because Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have repeatedly cited the book, saying its clarification of the danger of a type of humanitarianism without God is a true danger that we do face, we print a selection from it in ITV, now and in the months ahead.

The end came in a moment, swift and inevitable.

And for an instant, before the girl in the gallery sank down, blind with tears, she saw the tiny figure poised there at the knees of the huge image, beneath the expectant hands, silent and transfigured in the blaze of light. The Mother, it seemed, had found her Son at last.

For an instant she saw it, the soaring columns, the gilding and the colours, the swaying heads, the tossing hands. It was a sea that heaved before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead, presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it ecstasy. Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of worship ten thousand voices hailed Him Lord and God. BOOK III – THE VICTORY, CHAPTER I, SECTIOn I The little room where the new Pope sat reading was a model of simplicity. Its walls were whitewashed, its roof unpolished rafters, and its floor beaten mud. A square table stood in the centre, with a chair beside it; a cold brazier laid for lighting, stood in the wide hearth; a bookshelf against the wall held a dozen volumes. There were three doors, one leading to the private oratory, one to the ante-room, and the third to the little paved court.

The south windows were shuttered, but through the ill-fitting hinges streamed knife-blades of fiery light from the hot Eastern day outside. It was the time of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scything of the cicade from the hill-slope behind the house, all was in deep silence. ***** The Pope, who had dined an hour before, had hardly shifted His attitude in all that time, so intent was He upon His reading.

For the while, all was put away, His own memory of those last three months, the bitter anxiety, the intolerable load of responsibility. The book He held was a cheap reprint of the famous biography of Julian Felsenburgh, issued a month before, and he was now drawing to an end. It was a terse, well-written book, composed by an unknown hand, and some even suspected it to be the

God as depicted by British poet William Blake as the “architect of creation,” now in the British Museum, London

disguised work of Felsenburgh himself. More, however, considered that it was written at least with Felsenburgh’s consent by one of that small body of intimates whom he had admitted to his society — that body which under him now conducted the affairs of West and East. From certain indications in the book it had been argued that its actual writer was a Westerner.

The main body of the work dealt with his life, or rather with those two or three years known to the world, from his rapid rise in American politics and his mediation in the East down to the event of five months ago, when in swift succession he had been hailed Messiah in Damascus, had been formally adored in London, and finally elected by an extraordinary majority to the Tribuniciate of the two Americas.

The Pope had read rapidly through these objective facts, for He knew them well enough already, and was now studying with close attention the summary of his character, or rather, as the author rather sententiously explained, the summary of his self-manifestation to the world. He read the description of his two main characteristics, his grasp upon words and facts; “words, the daughters of earth, were wedded in this man to facts, the sons of heaven, and Superman was their offspring.”

His minor characteristics, too, were noticed, his appetite for literature, his astonishing memory, his linguistic powers. He possessed, it appeared, both the telescopic and the microscopic eye — he discerned world-wide tendencies and movements on the one hand; he had a passionate capacity for detail on the other.

Various anecdotes illustrated these remarks, and a number of terse aphorisms of his were recorded. “No man forgives,” he said; “he only understands.” “It needs supreme faith to renounce a transcendent God.” “A man who believes in himself is almost capable of believing in his neighbour.” Here was a sentence that to the Pope’s mind was significant of that sublime egotism that is alone capable of confronting the Christian spirit: and again, “To forgive a wrong is to condone a crime,” and “The strong man is accessible to no one, but all are accessible to him.”

There was a certain pompousness in this array of remarks, but it lay, as the Pope saw very well, not in the speaker but in the scribe. To him who had seen the speaker it was plain how they had been uttered — with no pontifical solemnity, but whirled out in a fiery stream of eloquence, or spoken with that strangely moving simplicity that had constituted his first assault on London.

It was possible to hate Felsenburgh, and to fear him; but never to be amused at him. But plainly the supreme pleasure of the writer was to trace the analogy between his hero and nature.

In both there was the same apparent contradictoriness — the combination of utter tenderness and utter ruthlessness. “The power that heals wounds also inflicts them: that clothes the dungheap with sweet growths and grasses, breaks, too, into fire and earthquake; that causes the partridge to die for her young, also makes the shrike with his living larder.”

So, too, with Felsenburgh; He who had wept over the Fall of Rome, a month later had spoken of extermination as an instrument that even now might be judicially used in the service of humanity.

Only it must be used with deliberation, not with passion.

The utterance had aroused extraordinary interest, since it seemed so paradoxical from one who preached peace and toleration; and argument had broken out all over the world.

But beyond enforcing the dispersal of the Irish Catholics, and the execution of a few individuals, so far that utterance had not been acted upon. Yet the world seemed as a whole to have accepted it, and even now to be waiting for its fulfilment.

As the biographer pointed out, the world enclosed in physical nature should welcome one who followed its precepts, one who was indeed the first to introduce deliberately and confessedly into human affairs such laws as those of the Survival of the Fittest and the immorality of forgiveness. If there was mystery in the one, there was mystery in the other, and both must be accepted if man was to develop.

And the secret of this, it seemed, lay in His personality. To see Him was to believe in Him, or rather to accept Him as inevitably true.

“We do not explain nature or escape from it by sentimental regrets: the bear cries like a child, the wounded stag weeps great tears, the robin kills his parents; life exists only on condition of death; and these things happen however we may weave theories that explain nothing.

Life must be accepted on those terms; we cannot be wrong if we follow nature; rather to accept them is to find peace — our great mother only reveals her secrets to those who take her as she is.”

So, too, with Felsenburgh. “It is not for us to discriminate: His personality is of a kind that does not admit it. He is complete and sufficing for those who trust Him and are willing to suffer; an hostile and hateful enigma to those who are not. We must prepare ourselves for the logical outcome of this doctrine. Sentimentality must not be permitted to dominate reason.”

Finally, then, the writer showed how to this Man belonged properly all those titles hitherto lavished upon imagined Supreme Beings. It was in preparation for Him that these types came into the realms of thought and influenced men’s lives.

He was the Creator, for it was reserved for Him to bring into being the perfect life of union to which all the world had hitherto groaned in vain; it was in His own image and likeness that He had made man.

Yet He was the Redeemer too, for that likeness had in one sense always underlain the tumult of mistake and conflict. He had brought man out of darkness and the shadow of death, guiding their feet into the way of peace.

He was the Saviour for the same reason — the Son of Man, for He alone was perfectly human; He was the Absolute, for He was the content of Ideals; the Eternal, for He had lain always in nature’s potentiality and secured by His being the continuity of that order; the Infinite, for all finite things fell short of Him who was more than their sum.

He was Alpha, then, and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He was Dominus et Deus noster [“Our Lord and Our God”] (as Domitian had been, the Pope reflected).

He was as simple and as complex as life itself — simple in its essence, complex in its activities.m (to be continued) MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN

57

VATICAN WATCH

By Matthew Trojacek with CNA Reports - Grzegorz Galazka and CNA photos

DECEMBER THURSDAY 12

POPE MEETS WITH PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS Pope Francis held a 30-minute long meeting December 12 with Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine.

Speaking to Vatican Media’s Roberto Cetera immediately afterwards, President Abbas described the meeting as “fruitful,” adding that “every time I meet the Pope, it’s like meeting an old friend.” It was the pair’s first face-toface meeting in three years.

“I thanked the Holy Father for his constant words about peace in the Middle East,” President Abbas said, “and for the solidarity he always expresses with the Palestinian civilians who are victims of the war in Gaza.” (Vatican News) SUNDAY 15

POPE’S MEETING WITH MACRON CONCLUDES CORSICA VISIT “I thank you for this gesture of coming here. It reflects your personality, seeking dialogue. Thank you very much for the time you have dedicated to me,” said French President Emmanuel Macron to Pope Francis (photo) shortly before he departed from Corsica at the end of his visit on December 15.

As in previous audiences, at the Vatican or in Marseille in 2023 and at the G7 Summit, Macron expressed warmth toward the Pope.

He presented Pope Francis with the gift of a large book dedicated to Notre Dame Cathedral, recently restored after the devastating 2019 fire and reopened to the public on December 8. The Pope reciprocated with medals of his pontificate and documents from his magisterium.

Specifically, Francis handed over a copy of Evangelii Gaudium and found the page where Saint Thomas More’s recommendation — often repeated by the Pope in his speeches — is cited: to never lose one’s sense of humour. The Pontiff pointed out the passage for Macron to read. Macron responded with a smile and shook the Pope’s hand. (Vatican News) MONDAY 16

POPE TO METHODISTS: RECONCILIATION IS A “TASK OF THE HEART” Pope Francis met on December 16 with several members of the World Methodist Council, an association of around 80 Churches throughout the world which represent some 80 million faithful.

58 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

In his address, the Pope thanked God that Catholics and Methodists have overcome our estrangement and sought to dialogue “in reciprocal knowledge, understanding, and love” for the past 60 years.

“Opening ourselves to one another has brought us closer and made us realize that reconciliation is a task of the heart,” he said. “When the Heart of the Lord Jesus touches our hearts, He transforms us.”

Pope Francis invited Methodists and Catholics to seek to unite our “differing minds and wills” under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

“This is a journey that takes time,” he said, “but we must continue along that path, always focused on the Heart of Christ, because it is from that Heart that we learn to relate well to one another and to serve God’s kingdom.” (Vatican News) THURSDAY 19

VATICAN INAUGURATES NEW POST OFFICE IN SAINT PETER’S SQUARE A ribbon-cutting ceremony on December 19 in Saint Peter’s Square inaugurated the mobile post office donated

by Poste Italiane (the Italian Postal Service).

Already operational, the office is designed to offer pilgrims and visitors exclusive postal and philatelic products.

Present were Cardinal President of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, the Director of Poste Italiane, Giuseppe Lasco, and Sister Raffaella Petrini, Secretary General of the Governorate.

The new Vatican Mobile Post Office will not only be for work or official service, but will be a place where it is truly possible to “send, receive, meet and be met by God’s announcements.” (VaticanNews) VATICAN CRACKS DOWN ON ILLEGAL ENTRY INTO ITS TERRITORY The Vatican City State has toughened sanctions for those who try to enter its territory illegally in areas where free access is not allowed.

In a decree issued December 19 by the Holy See, the monetary sanctions and prison sentences for those who violate the strict security regulations of Vatican City have been considerably increased.

The document, signed by Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, provides for monetary fines ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 euros (about $10,200 to $25,700) and prison sentences ranging from one to four years. The decree emphasizes that the penalties can be increased if the

crime is committed with firearms, corrosive substances, by a person in disguise, or by several people together. Likewise, if illegal access is made in a vehicle, the penalty can increase by up to two-thirds.

The document also stipulates that unauthorized overflight of Vatican airspace, including through the use of drones, may be punished with prison sentences from six months to three years in addition to a fine that could reach 25,000 euros (about $26,000). (CNA)

JANUARY MONDAY 13

PAROLIN MEETS MIDDLE EAST NUNCIOS, SPEAKS WITH LEBANON’S NEW PRESIDENT The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, presided over a meeting on January 13 with the Apostolic Nuncios in the Middle Eastern region in Jordan’s capital of Amman, where he traveled for the consecration of the Church of the Baptism of Jesus along the banks of the Jordan River on January 10.

According to a statement by the Holy See Press Office Monday evening, the meeting was attended by papal representatives accredited to the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Iraq, the State of Israel, the State of Kuwait, the Republic of Lebanon, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Palestine, the State of Qatar, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Republic of Yemen.

(Vatican News) POPE PRAISES BUDDHIST REVIVAL IN POST-SOVIET MONGOLIA Pope Francis has praised the “profound religious renewal” that has taken place in Mongolia since the 1990s.

In a meeting on January 13 with a delegation of Mongolian Buddhists (photo), Pope Francis said that the country has “reclaimed” its “rich religious heritage” by “reviving traditional spiritual practices and integrating them into the nation’s development.”

From 1921 until the late 1980s, Mongolia was a oneparty state with close ties to the Soviet Union, and religion was violently repressed. Buddhism was the main target of the repression, being by far the largest religion in the country, which is also home to small numbers of Muslims, shamanists, and Christians.

The Pope said that the meeting – the first to be held in the Vatican between a Mongolian Buddhist delegation and a Pope – was of “particular significance,” and reflected the “friendly and enduring relations” between the Holy See and the “noble people of Mongolia.”

The Buddhist delegation was accompanied by Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, the Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar. (Vatican News) SATURDAY 18

POPE HIGHLIGHTS SWISS GUARD’S JUBILEE YEAR SERVICE TO PILGRIMS As millions of pilgrims are expected for the jubilee year in Rome, Pope Francis praised the patient service of the Swiss Guard (photo) and support for their families on January 18.

Speaking at an audience marking the 25th anniversary of the Pontifical Swiss Guard Foundation, the Pope emphasized how the guards’ patient service has become increasingly vital for managing pilgrim visits.

“Over time, the work of the Swiss Guard has changed considerably, but its aim remains always that of protecting the Pope,” Francis said.

“This also involves contributing to the welcome of the many pilgrims from all over the world who wish to meet him. And this takes patience, and the guards have it!”

The foundation, established during the Great Jubilee of 2000, provides crucial support for guard families, particularly in education and professional development.

“I like the fact that the guards get married; I like the fact they have children, they have a family,” the Pope said, noting the growing number of married guards with children. “This is very important, very important.”

Beyond family support, the foundation helps ensure the guards’ operational readiness through training programs and equipment updates. It also maintains contact with former guards who have returned home after Vatican service.

(CNA) MONDAY 20

CHINA ORDAINS 11TH BISHOP UNDER SINO-VATICAN AGREEMENT A newly created Catholic diocese in China’s Shanxi province witnessed the ordination of its first bishop under a recently renewed secretive China–Vatican agreement.

Father Antoine Ji Weizhong, 51, was ordained as the Bishop of Luliang on January 20 in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in Fenyang.

Bishop Ji will lead Luliang diocese, formed from the now-suppressed Fenyang diocese, which will remain a suffragan of Taiyuan archdiocese.

Pope Francis approved his appointment on October 28, 2024, just days after renewing a provisional China-Vatican agreement on the appointment of bishops, making him the 11th prelate to be ordained under this arrangement. (UCANews)m MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 59

PEOPLE B M Y

ATTHEW TROJACEK with Grzegorz Galazka photos

POPE’S PREACHER SPEAKS ON HIS HUMANITY, RETURN TO FAITH, AND BEING A BIBLE “EXPERT” Franciscan Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini (photo left) is very comfortable with public speaking — it’s basically his job as a Scripture expert called on to give talks and lead retreats around Italy.

On November 9 last year, Pope Francis named Pasolini the next preacher of the Papal Household, succeeding 90-year-old Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa (photo below right), who held the post for 44 years.

The 53-year-old Pasolini said the call to become the Pope’s preacher was a big surprise and caused him “a great deal of fear.”

“The fact that God is calling me, at this moment, to go right into the heart of the Church, in front of the Pope, the cardinals, the people who support the Christian institution, to speak such important, meaningful words, it scares me,” he told CNA during an interview in Rome on December 11.

“On the other hand, I also felt a great alignment with what was already happening [in my life],” he noted, “because I have always been following words, reading texts, and searching reality for the meaning that can give clarity to our existence.”

Fr. Pasolini’s appointment became somewhat controversial after discovery that, referring to a possible homosexual relationship between Jonathan and David in the Bible, Pasolini had said in a talk, “we are in any case authorized to imagine that the love between David and Saul’s son could have been of this nature.” (CNA) VATICAN OFFICIALLY OPENS BEATIFICATION PROCESS FOR LATE BELGIAN KING BAUDOUIN On December 21, the Vatican officially opened the beatification process of King Baudouin of Belgium (photo), remembered as a humble leader willing to abdicate his throne rather than approve the decriminalization of abortion in his country.

Baudouin, who witnessed a Belgium transformed by periods of social upheaval and growing secularism, was publicly recognized as a devout Catholic committed to both the Church and his country throughout his more than 40 years on the throne from 1951–1993. (CNA) CALL FOR PEACE, PROGRESS IN WAR-TORN MYANMAR A new bishop has been ordained and installed with a call for peace and progress in wartorn Myanmar, especially in the Kachin region, where a decades-long armed struggle for autonomy continues unabated.

Bishop John Mung La Sam (above left) was ordained on January 12 for Myitkyina diocese in the state capital of war-ravaged Kachin state in northern Myanmar.

60 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

POPE TO KNIGHTS OF MALTA: JESUS ACCOMPANIES YOU ON PATH OF GENEROSITY

Pope Francis welcomed a delegation of the Archconfraternity of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist of the Knights of Malta from Catanzaro, Calabria, on January 3, during their visit to the Vatican.

He acknowledged having just celebrated the feast of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God, noting that “she is the protector of your confraternity, which honours her with the title of Hodegetria, ‘she who shows the way,’ that is, Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Reflecting on the image of Mary, Pope Francis noted that Mary holds in her arms the Saviour born for us.

“This is the event of love to which you bear witness by adoring the Eucharist, serving others, and walking through the history of your city,” said the Pope, before offering a reflection on those three verbs: adore, serve, and walk. (VaticanNews) Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon (below, at bottom), who officiated at the ceremony, highlighted the distressing situation in the region, calling on all stakeholders to work for peace and progress of the people.

“The Kachin are faced with crises that are frightening in their scale and complexity: first of all, displacement and emigration in a country where entire communities have been uprooted by the conflict. Families live in camps and yearn for the stability of a home,” Bo said.

For over six decades, Kachins have fought for autonomy from Myanmar through the armed rebel group, the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

Some 33 percent of Kachin’s 1.7 million people are Christians, including about 160,000 Catholics in two dioceses — Myitkyina and Banmaw.

(UCANews) “BEING A CHRISTIAN MEANS LEARNING TO BE HUMAN AGAIN” Speaking to Vatican News after the solemn Mass he had celebrated for the anniversary of Pope Benedict’s death on December 31, Cardinal Kurt Koch (photo) said the late Pope was “a very humble person who approached others and listened to what they had to say.”

“He was a very kind person,” said the Swiss cardinal, who is the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Pro-

moting Christian Unity. “If you JUBILEE YEAR 2025 BEGINS IN SHANGHAI looked into his eyes, you could see WITH BAPTISMS AND HOPE FOR PEACE that there was a lot of inner light The Diocese of Shanghai ushered there. in the Jubilee Year 2025 with the bap“It was always very important to tism of 54 catechumens durhim that being a Christian was based ing the Feast of the on being human. The two went toBaptism of the Lord. gether for him. Being a Christian Bishop Joseph Shen means learning to be human again.

Bin (photo) presided And he was an excellent example of over the sacrament this.”

January 12 in a solemn Pope Benedict himself once said Mass attended by more than 1,500 faithful and catechumens at the Cathedral that he was aware that he would not of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. have a long pontificate, that he In his homily, Bishop Shen Bin reflected on the importance of baptism in would not be able to initiate any Christian life, emphasizing that it marks the beginning of an ongoing journey major projects; that his concern, his of faith.

He called on all Catholics to actively participate in the Jubilee Year, mission, was to bring faith back to encouraging them to grow in their faith and devotion alongside the newly bapthe center of the Church. tized members of the church.

“For him, the question of God “Baptism is the foundation of our Christian journey,” the bishop said. “It is was central. The centrality of the a sacrament that calls us to live as followers of Christ, shining with the light of question of God was the inner core faith, and sharing that light with the world around us.” (LaCroix) of his entire work — not just any God, a supreme being in heaven, but Jordan on January 14 after presiding over the inauguration the God who is not mute but speaks, who spoke to his peoMass of the Church of the Baptism of the Lord at the Bapple Israel and above all showed his face in Jesus of tism site, where he served as Pope Francis’s repreNazareth, in Jesus Christ. sentative for the historic consecration.

“The centrality of the question of God and ChristocenSpeaking in an interview with the Jortricity: that is the inner core [of Pope Benedict’s work] that danian news agency Petra, Cardinal Parolin will certainly remain.” (VaticanNews) detailed his mission as Papal Legate for the January 10 church consecration at the BapCARDINAL PAROLIN CONCLUDES tism Site, where he witnessed what he deJORDAN VISIT, HIGHLIGHTS scribed as a “vital and vibrant” Catholic Church in Jordan “STRONG” VATICAN TIES, under the guidance of Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista RELIGIOUS COEXISTENCE Pizzaballa (photo above right).

Secretary of State of the Holy See Cardi“The relations are excellent,” Parolin said of Jordan-Vatnal Pietro Parolin (photo) concluded his visit to ican ties, which have been enhanced by the presence of Jesus’ Baptism BEIJING CATHOLIC PARISH site and other holy places in CELEBRATES 420 YEARS Jordan.

OF HISTORY The diplomatic relationship marked its 30th anA Catholic church in China has niversary in March 2024 with launched a special “Year of Grace” inia visit by the Vatican’s Secretary for tiative for the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope Relations with States Monsignor Paul to celebrate the parish’s founding and Richard Gallagher (photo above right). commemorate its rich history.

Addressing religious coexistence, The Church of the Immaculate ConParolin stressed the Holy See’s deep conception in China’s capital Beijing, cern for Christian communities across the founded some 420 years ago by VeneraMiddle East. ble Matteo Ricci, started its year-long “Christians can live in their own councelebrations on January 14, Agenzia tries in harmony, coexistence and peace, Fides, the Vatican’s missionary without ever feeling discriminated against news agency, reported on or restricted in their actions,” he said.

January 16.

The statue of Venerable Matteo Ricci “Being fully citizens, Christians are a viIn a homily delivered in front of the Church brant component of their countries, like in of the Immaculate Conception during the inaugural Holy in China’s capital, Beijing Jordan, and they contribute significantly to Mass, Father Peter Zhao Jianmin (photo) pointed out that Ricci had traveled tirelessly to the progress and development of the nation.” (JordanTimes)m bring the flame of faith to China. (UCANews) MARCH-APRIL 2025 INSIDE THE VATICAN 61

Food FoR THoUGHT n BY MOTHER MARTHA

I

n 2004 Egeria di Nallo, a prolific author and professor of anthropology, political ESt ookS of science, sociology and marketing at the University of Bologna, with a group of commmitted citizens, founded the Association for the Protection and Enhancement of Italy’s Culinary Gastronomic Heritage under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture and the University of Bologna. Although at first its members were mostly in the region of Emilia-Romagna, it soon became Italy’s first nationwide community of local home cooks. Its mission was and still is to safeguard Italy’s food culture by organizing authentic culinary experiences for guests — first in hundreds, now in thousands, of local homes all over Italy.

In 2014 the Association was taken over by tech entrepreneur Davide Maggi — creator of some of Italy’s first digital startups and executive director of the Digital Marketing & Communication Executive Program at the Bologna Business School. In 2017 he set up its online platform, www.cesarine.com, the first in the world devoted solely to food, making it accessible to anyone who wanted to join remotely. In fact, its name literally means “Little Caesars” (the pet name for housewives of Emilia-Romagna), thus “the empresses of their homes, especially their kitchens.”

In 2018, Maggi’s initiative became an innovative SME (Small or Medium-sized Enterprise) and in 2023 a non-profit Benefit Society, while in 2019 it was recognized as a Slow Food widespread community.

That same year members hosted some 10,000 guests, 80% of whom were foreigners — mainly from the USA, Canada, France, Germany, England, and Switzerland. In 2023, its community of 1,500 amateur cooks and chefs, 80% of whom are women between the ages of 45 and 50, opened their homes in some 450 locations in Italy to 50,000 guests (an increase of 65% compared to 2022) to offer not only dining experiences, but also cooking classes and food, wine and market tours. (Its most popular classes: how to make tiramisù and local pastas).

The most popular Cesarine destination has always been Bologna (in 2024, a 25% increase over 2023).

Other popular destinations are Venice, Lake Como, Florence, Cinque Terre (200% increase in 2024 over 2023), Sorrento and Positano, Bologna, Milan, Rome and Naples. Interest in Sicily is growing exponentially, with

B

62 INSIDE THE VATICAN MARCH-APRIL 2025

the most popular destinations being Palermo, Taormina, Messina and Catania. Reservations tALIAN ookINg in Palermo increased last year by 60% and by 130% in Messina.

As for foreign clients, with 30,000 guests in 2024, Americans continue to be the most numerous clients, followed by Australians, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Northern Europeans, in particular Germany, France and Switzerland.

With so many destinations, offers, and prices to choose from, not to mention instructions on how to become a cesarina, it’s essential to consult the website (in Italian and English) mentioned above because every experience is tailor-made. Here it’s also possible to book an “experience” as a gift. (For specific questions you can also telphone to +39-340-156-4661 or + 1-985531-9607, Monday–Friday 9:30-11:30 and 16:30-18:30 Central European Time.)

The year 2024 brought additional successes. The Italian guests increased 25%; in comparison, Italy’s non-Cesarine enogastromonic tourism increased only 12%. Very popular was the new group event “Seratine,” every Wednesday evening, for now in 10 Italian cities: Milano, Torino, Bologna, Modena, Rimini, Verona, Pesaro, Assisi, Fasano, and Catania, where the guests prepare a dish and enjoy an aperitivo (“Mani in Pasta,” 59 euros) or enjoy an already prepared dish and aperitivo (“Aperitivo Experience,” 35 euros).

Also in 2024, the Cesarine joined forces with Borghi più Belli d’Italia (Most Beautiful Villages of Italy) and with Dimore Storiche d’Epoca (Historical Homes) to introduce tourism off-the-beaten-track, not to mention that in June they opened their first permanent cooking school in Assisi.

Their Benefit Society also grew: giving female inmates in Bologna’s jail pasta-making lessons; Emmaus in Alba which supports people in fragile health; and Tortellante in Modena, a project for young people with autism. At the end of 2024, several Cesarine crossed the Atlantic to introduce authentic Italian cuisine via two cooking classes for journalists and influencers, organized

by ENIT (Italy’s National Tourist Board) in collabortion with Bologna Welcome and Destination Verona Garda, at New York’s Italian Cultural Institute.

With the number of applications to become a cesarina growing by leaps and bounds domestically, the main project for 2025 is to enroll Italians who live abroad.m

“LE CESARINE” C I C

!

Join us on pilgrimage and renew your faith during the Jubilee of Hope!

2025 PILGRIMAGES ITALY: Easter - SOLD OUT April 14 – 24, 2025 USA: Wisconsin: Discovering Mary in the Heartland April 28 – May 2, 2025 ITALY: Journey Toward to the Face of Christ May 24 – June 3, 2025 Pilgrimage to Medjugorje and Retreat to a private island in Croatia – August 20 – 29, 2025 SPAIN AND FRANCE: With Mary from Garabandal to Lourdes – August 21 – 28, 2025 MEXICO: Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy September 19 – 26, 2025 ITALY: Jubilee Year and St. Francis of Assisi – September 27 – October 7, 2025 SPAIN: Pilgrimage and Retreat with Fr. Murr – October 23 – 30, 2025 LEBANON: Ancient Monasteries, Modern Saints and Christmas Markets – December 2025 Italy: Christmas December 2025 PILGRIMAGE@INSIDETHEVATICAN.COM ∞ +1.202.536.4555 ∞ InsideTheVaticanPilgrimages.com